Hotel Deep: Light Verse from Dark Water

I fell in love with Oddhopper Opera and bought it before my son was even conceived. I recently discovered Hotel Deep and ordered it sight-unseen. It is yet further proof that Kurt Cyrus is a fabulous artist and a brilliant poet. This is now my 2.5-yr-old's favorite book. He asks for it by name ("Read Toe Deep?"), and goes around quoting it. His favorite page is where the lone sardine finally reunites with his school ("Sardines! Sardinessardinessardinessardines...!") But his favorite poem is the one about the stonefish. Apparently he is able to pick up on the idea of the fish pretending to be what it isn't, and he walks around saying, "Not a stonefish, no indeed!" A young child needs to have his hand held and be shown how to appreciate these Kurt Cyrus books, but there is so much there for both him and us to enjoy. My husband and I don't get tired of reading this one! Okay, I have to amend this review to say that my son (still 2.5) knows the ENTIRE book by heart. He can recite the whole thing one line ahead of us. He loves to point to the sardine on every page (except the deep-sea page, where he says, "Don't see sardine!" every time), and he can find and identify each of the 28 fish named and pictured on the back page of the book. Parental bragging aside, I consider this a tribute to the book's brilliance. A 2-yr-old can enter into it wholeheartedly, but as an adult I can tell you that there are fresh details that emerge every time through. My children won't outgrow this one. Oddhopper Opera is a fun romp, but Hotel Deep is just pure art.

Does anyone know how I can contact the author about buying the artwork for this book? Kurt Cyrus is an outstanding artist and not a bad poet either. Hopefully he will grace us with a full length book at some point. My son and daughter both love his books and often look through them just for the pictures themselves and my son, who is just beginning to read, is able to follow the text. Another excellent book by the author

Hotel Deep is an amazing and beautifully illustrated book. It fun to read and each poem is about the curious deep ocean and the creatures that live in it. My 4 year old loved his other book "odhopper opera" so when I saw this, i bought it. Its style is very similiar to "opera" (which is about a garden and the bugs & creatures in it) I love both books and would give them to every child I know. sam

Hotel Deep is a book containing 21 poems by Kurt Cyrus. They all have an ocean theme to them. At the end of the book are small picture and titles of under water life to search for in the book. The illustrations were neat to look at. They made me think of the summers my family and I spent at the beach. This would be a great book for classroom teachers to share with their student during a unit on ocean life or poetry.