Customer Reviews

Amazing Faces

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
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I originally bought this book for a teacher as an end of the year gift. She LOVED it!!! I just bought a copy for my family. The book is stunningly illustrated and each poem somehow stands out and flows seamlessly together. There are selections from the famous and the not-yet-famous. I was especially struck by the poem by Mary E. Cronin: Firefighter's Face...I felt the the heat and exhaustion of that firefighter. Great book! Great Gift! It is a keeper. I give it 5 stars.

Just as everyone has a story to tell, every person's face portrays a unique blend of feelings, history, and background. This new anthology presents children with 16 poems by an acclaimed group of poets and authors, each expressing a compelling set of circumstances and emotions. Illustrator Chris Soentpiet has applied his distinctive style to the accompanying paintings, all of which portray people across diverse age groups and racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Several of the poems and illustrations convey an economic setting or story, including a young child who sits with his mother while she works as a seamstress in Chinatown, a bilingual girl who is pleased to be able to read both the Spanish and English parts of a Mexican restaurant's menu, and a tired firefighter who labors on to put out the flames. It can be a nice change of pace to introduce children to economic themes using poetry and art, and this anthology certainly fits the bill.

I met Jude Mandell - author, poet, teacher, singer - peeking from behind her book Amazing Faces at a conference booksale. And I say her book, even though Amazing Faces is a collection of poems edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Chris Soentpiet, and only one poem is Mandell's - but her fervor for the book was impressive.

Jude's poem is typical of the wonderfully emotional poems that fill this beautiful book.

I'm the one

You heard crying,

Walking home

From school

Today.

In simple but powerful language and life-like illustrations, Amazing Faces captures children's faces and the emotions they wear on them as they play, pout, laugh, and sleep. The 16 poems come from esteemed children's writers such as Jane Yolen and amazing poets like Langston Hughes.

The night is beautiful,

So the faces of my people.

There is power in those words! Chris Soentpiet's illustrations leap off the page, whether the tight-fisted karate kicker or the boyish-faced young soldier returning home. My favorite is the Good Fortune Seafood Market, filled with a busyness of fish in baskets and red paper lanterns, and where Janet S. Wong writes about living "around the corner from Heaven's Supermarket, where all lines are cash only."

Delightful.

Lee and Low is a small publisher that focuses on "stories that children of color can identify with and that all children can enjoy." Amazing faces certainly meets that charter and moves hearts as well. I think art draws all levels of readers into books, and poetry can be particularly demanding on readers, and thus ideally suited for advanced readers. I heartily recommend Amazing Faces to move hearts of all ages.

Amazing Faces is a collection of sixteen poems that celebrates the rich diversity of the lives of American children. With beautiful watercolor portraits, this book has a great mix of emotions with Jude Mandell's "I'm the One," a sad boy is not accepted by the in crowd, and Pat Mora's "High in the Sky," in which a child enjoys solitude under the stars. Amazing Faces is truly an enjoyable read.