22 September 2010 AMAZING FACES, poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Chris Soentpiet, ill., Lee & Low Books, June 2010, 40p., ISBN: 978-1-60060-334-1
In a sense, it was like out of some children's fantasy novel -- a second world existing above the one we all know and see. And only a few people outside of its inhabitants can actually lay eyes on this second world.
But now I was seeing it!
It was mid-morning, the fog had just cleared leaving San Francisco bright and brisk, and I was walking along Stockton Street in Chinatown. Sure, in the past, out of the corner of my eye, a gust of wind would cause me to glance upward momentarily and notice clothes hung out to dry on some nearby fire escape. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that this neighborhood was not just restaurants, produce markets, and tourist shops. But until you make a conscious effort to see that second world above the first one -- the upstairs apartments in which so many of this community live -- it is so easy to remain oblivious to its presence.
What seems sort of ironic is that this second world is in my genes. During the Depression, on the other coast, my mother grew up in just such an apartment. But it took my being in teacher mode on this day to fully open my eyes to what I'd not really seen during dozens of previous trips here, when I'd drive down to visit my favorite restaurant in the world (Lucky Creation Vegetarian Restaurant on Washington Street.)
Thanks to Lee Bennett Hopkins and Chris Soentpiet, Janet Wong's poem "Living Above Good Fortune," relating to this very topic, will now enlighten readers, no matter how far away from such a community they, themselves, live:
"I live above Good Fortune
where they catch crabs fresh
cook them any way you want
fast as you can spell c-ru-s-t-a-c-e-a-n
I live around the corner from Heaven's Supermarket
where all the lines are cash only
and you can get two for one
if you know how to talk nice
I live on a street where every other thing is Lucky
and every other thing is for tourists
My mother says,
'You don't want to go to those places'
even though she sees it in my eyes
how much I wish sometimes
but I live above Good Fortune
Lucky me"
Janet S. Wong
"Living Above Good Fortune" is but one of sixteen exceptional poems that have been collected here by Hopkins and illustrated by Soentpiet.
We in the library world so often speak of the importance of children getting to see themselves in the books to which they have access. And this is one of the things that AMAZING FACES does so amazingly well. It is a collection in which diverse young readers will see themselves -- both in the poems and the pictures -- amidst the rainbow of cultures and skin colors found here.
Abuela
"Her face, a lacework of courage;
Her brow, brown as settled earth;
Her chin, worn thin, a point of pride;
Her cheeks, soft antiques of the sun;
Her smile, a profile in mischief,
Latina, abuela, she is everyone
Of us come from otherwhere,
Happy to call another stratosphere
Home.
J. Patrick Lewis
Inclusion and exclusion is another thing of which we often speak. It was just the other day that I was talking to student teachers about familiarizing themselves with Teaching Tolerance's Mix It Up at Lunch Day which, this year, will take place on November 9th. I was explaining what none of these young teachers-in-training can yet fully grasp --- how one can be as old as me and still so clearly feel the sting of being excluded decades earlier. And how the slights I suffered are so inconsequential in comparison to what far too many twenty-first century young people still experience -- particularly in today's economic climate --despite it's being so many decades beyond Martin and Cesar.
This is another forever-a-problem that this collection will help address, and I am confident that if it is made available to young readers, AMAZING FACES will be responsible for many a young reader "getting it."
"I'm The One"
I'm the one
You turn your
Back on,
Never asking me
To play.
I'm the one
You heard crying,
Walking home
From school
Today.
You're the one
Who could erase
Sadness
Traced
Upon my face.
If only one day
You could see,
What fun
You'd have
Being
Friends
With
Me.
Jude Mandell
Richie Partington, MLIS
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FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he will Pick their books. You can figure that any review was written after reading and dog-earring a free copy received. Richie retains these review copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools and libraries.
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