Cappy West in India

Cappy West tried to say hello. It came out backwards. Meet Cappy West — a friendly capybara with a brass compass, a sage-green bandana, and absolutely no sense of direction. He never sets out to learn anything. The learning just keeps finding him. In Book 7 of Cappy West: The Global Explorer, Cappy arrives in India and gets everything delightfully wrong. He greets everyone the wrong way round. He tries to fan himself with a peacock. He mistakes a sleeping tiger for a stripy carpet and dives under a cart to "hide" from a festival of colours — and a kind local child is always there to set him straight. Along the way, young readers discover real, verified facts about India: the warm greeting "Namaste," made by pressing your hands together; the shimmering peacock, the national bird; the games of Snakes and Ladders and chess, both invented here; the Bengal tiger; mighty Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain on Earth; the spring colours of Holi and the lamp-lit nights of Diwali; the first country to land near the Moon's south pole; and the white marble Taj Mahal in Agra. Every short chapter pairs a funny blunder with a true discovery, a Fun Fact, and a gentle Cappy Tip about kindness, curiosity, and slowing down to notice the world. The book closes with a Travel Scrapbook, a fact recap, and a quiz to share. Perfect for ages 6–8 (grades 2–3), confident new readers, bedtime read-alouds, and homeschool trips around the globe. Each book stands on its own — or collect the whole around-the-world series. "I wasn't lost — I was just taking the scenic route to this fact!"