Oddhopper Opera: A Bug’s Garden of Verses

by: Kurt Cyrus

Published by: Harcourt

Reviewed by Michelle D. Basich

“Wow! Mommy, it’s a snake!” I heard those very words as a little one-year-old boy sat enthralled, flipping through pages of stunning pictures of lively bugs and of curving words crawling across the pages of Oddhopper Opera: A Bug’s Garden of Verses.

Oddhopper Opera is a combination of rhyming verses and colorful drawings of bugs and animals. The child gets an insider’s look into a bug’s race in an unattended garden. Filled with bugs of all shapes and sizes, this garden provides the backdrop for the story line, that of a race among the bugs to get to the finish line. Its incorporation of poetry into an otherwise “science”- seeming children’s book will broaden the imagination of any child.

Though there is a creative, wide range of vocabulary, it makes it a difficult independent read for a child (for example, “Once up on a garden rotten, Twice forlorn and half forgotten”).

Oddhopper Opera doesn’t shy away from the facts of life, apparent in some of these example lines “dung balls rolling – move ”˜em out,” “Feeling kind of bloated,” “’Papa, O Papa Bug, what will we eat?’ “”˜It’s gummy, it’s yummy, it’s dung! What a treat!’”

Regarding format, some of the words follow the twists and curves of the pictures, making it a challenge for a child of ages 5 to 10 to read independently, but a fun journey to read with, or to, a child.

The intriguing mix of poetry, stunning pictures, bugs and action-filled pages will keep children’s attention and increase curiosity about what’s going on in their own backyards.

Armchair Interviews says: If bugs bug you, or you love bugs, this book will bring you down to their level of living.

Author’s Web site: http://www.kurtcyrus.zoomshare.com