Poetry: Amazing Faces

Title: Amazing Faces 

Poems Selected By: Lee Bennett Hopkins 

Illustrator: Chris Soentpiet

Genre: Poetry 

Major Awards: Texas Blue Bonnet Award nominee 

Age Group: 6-12 years old  

Amazing Faces by Lee Bennett Hopkins is a collection of poems by different writers that tell stories of love, happiness, sadness, geography, family, friends, and culture. As suggested by the title both the writing and the illustrations are incredibly diverse and multicultural representing all of the "Amazing Faces" that are seen in the world and in our everyday lives. There are a wide variety of poems represented in the anthology. There are poems about aunts, grandmas, moms and their children, firefighters, soldiers, seamstresses, dreams, and what it means to be a friend. Two of the poems are bilingual and incorporate both English and Spanish in their writing. All of the poems that are in Amazing Faces represent the rich culture and diversity we see in our world today; through these poems it opens a window to explore and learn from different experiences other than our own, but to also make connections and show that our feelings are universal. In the end there is a beautiful poem by Langston Hughes entitled "My People" that tells how our world is a mixture of people of all different faces, eyes, and stories, and that is what makes us beautiful. 

Amazing Faces is an excellent edition to add to all 1st-7th grade classroom library. Adding this book of poems is a wonderful way to not only include poetry anthologies into the classroom library, but it is also a multicultural book that touches on several cultures and topics that can be used for various instances in the classroom. Seeing as how Amazing Faces is a collection of different poems, when using it in the classroom, I would take the book apart and use each poem individually for different instructional reasons. For the poem "Which Way to Dreamland" I could have the students do a creative writing assignment where they write about a dream they've had. For the poem "High in the Sky" we can talk about where we live and what we see outside and write a poem about that. For the poem "Living Above Good Fortune" we can discuss Chinese new year and different symbols of luck in the Chinese culture. The poem entitled "A Young Solider" can be tied into a lesson about Veterans day and honoring those who have served in our Armed Forces. The list is truly endless with the possibilities about teachable moments and connections to other content, along with lessons that can be made with just this one book.