Amazing Faces, poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Chris Soentpiet

This book is a great collection of poems that really reflect diversity and America.  Diversity in race as well as the range of emotions in human experience, both are on display in this collection.  The collection moves gracefully from one poem to the next, each fitting next to the other to make a cohesive whole.  This is helped by Soentpiet’s art which celebrates emotions, humanity and community in the faces he depicts.

Hopkins has created a collection that really meshes well.  Each poem and poet has a distinct voice and point of view.  The differences are celebrated here, the poems just as diverse as the world they share.  The first poem, Amazing Face by Rebecca Kai Dotlich, welcomes readers with open arms into the collection.  It is closed just as effectively with a Langston Hughes poem, My People. 

Soentpiet’s art captures moments in the world that we all want to grasp and hold onto a bit longer before they pass.  There is the smile of a baby, the power of a storyteller, the evening sky, and that moment that loneliness disappears.  All are illustrated with great detail, making those moments ever so real.

Highly recommended, this collection of poetry will help you celebrate what America is all about: the diversity of its people.  Appropriate for ages 5-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Lee & Low Books.