 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher, and today I have a picture book review for you. Now this is a picture book that I received as a review copy from NetGalley. I saw the title and just couldn't resist because it's perfect for this time of year. And this book is called Don't Be Mean to Thirteen. It was written by Douglas Harris, and it has a foreword by Robin E. Blummer. And this is a book that looks at the origins behind the number 13 and why some people are superstitious around the number 13. And I thought it was so cool because obviously this month we have a Friday the 13th, which is touched on in the book as well. And this book is kind of that really cool blend of story that is imparting information. So it is closer to an information text than it is a narrative, but it does have that element of storytelling in it in that we are learning the information as a character is telling it to us. So we have two characters in the story. We have the number 13, this little black fuzzy creature, and we also have Thirteen's friend who goes through the history and talks a lot about what a superstition is, why people are superstitious of the number 13, sort of the origins of it. I didn't know that there was actually a phobia named for it. I'm probably going to mispronounce it. It is Triscordachephobia, I think, is the fear of the number 13. I didn't know that that was an actual thing, but apparently it is. So that was a really cool fact that I learned. And I mean, this is going to be a fairly short review of the book, but what I really enjoyed about it was the fact that it does encourage that critical thinking and deep thinking about things that we just we hear every day. So people talk about Thirteen being unlucky. We hear about Friday the 13th being unlucky. But why do we think that? Where does that come from? What is the origins of that thinking? And do we need to continue that thinking moving into the future? This book has quite a bit of information. There is a lot of text on page in certain parts. Some pages are fairly text light, others have more information on them. So this probably is a book that is more suited for middle and upper primary, but that's at any picture book you can always read with younger readers. You're just going to probably either help them a little bit more or have conversations with them as you're reading the book. And I really like the illustrations in it. They're fun, they're bright. They make Thirteen look cute because I mean the point is not to scare anyone with this information. And I had a great time reading it. I was really pleasantly surprised by it. And I've not quite read something that has dealt with this topic before. And I mean what a great book to read at school and actually unpack and to practice some of those critical thinking skills that we are teaching in in classrooms right now because it's such an important skill to be able to use to unpack things that we hear about all the time. So thank you to NetGalley for the review copy. I had a great time reading this. I haven't requested a picture book from NetGalley in a long time, but I'm so glad that I requested this one. I will leave links to where you can find out more information about it down below. If you've read the book or you're planning on picking it up, feel free to have a chat to me about it in the comments. Or if you just want to let me know that you're here, feel free to leave your favorite black emoji in the comments. I hope that wherever you're on the world, just staying safe and healthy. And I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.