 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher, and welcome or welcome back to my channel. Today I'm here to review A Message Through Time by Anna Sidor, which is a companion book to The Boy Who Stepped Through Time. Both of these are time-slipped novels about characters who travel from the present day into the past. This is an Australian middle grade title, it is a lot of fun. We have Felix who is 11 years old and he is traveling France with his family, including his 15 year old step-sister Zoe. And their blended family is relatively new, so Felix and Zoe are still working out their relationship, but they're on their last day of their holiday in France, and they unintentionally find themselves stumbling through a wall into ancient Rome via a Roman bath. And they're there for a little while but then they go home, but accidentally they bring back a young noblewoman from ancient Rome who begins to explore the present day with them, but then they need to return her to her own time because they're due to end their holiday very soon. But when they return her to her time, they realise that she has been, her body has been unconscious for a significant period of time, and they need to find a way to return her to herself, and thus begins an adventure that involves unscrupulous sailors and garden parties and all sorts of crazy hijinks. Anna Sidor researched this book alongside her sister, who happens to be an expert in ancient Rome, so there are plenty of historically accurate facts in here which are highly entertaining and seem ridiculous but are fact. I loved that we had a blended family in here that are still finding their dynamics, so Felix and Zoe are working out how to be around one another. And you have your regular sibling dynamics of exasperation when one does something wrong, but also that fear of failing them and of disappointing them that comes through, particularly as Felix has to navigate a situation where he may or may not have lost the way home. There's lots of really cool ancient facts. As I said, you also have Felix learning how to stand up to bullies and how to be brave in that way and how to recognize that that's a them thing and not a him thing, and he has the ability to take away their power. He also learns that it's okay to ask for help as well in those situations. This book is really cool because you also have maps. There are a few illustrations here and there through the story, and then at the very back of the book there is also a glossary of terms, so this also makes for a really great classroom read because you can start investigating things to do with ancient Rome. I'd also encourage people to, particularly if you're using this in a classroom, to also read the author's notes because there's lots of additional extra information in there that relates to things that we find out about in the story. So thank you very much to Alan and when the publisher for sending me this book. It was a delight to read. I'm really enjoying this series. I'm always excited to read Australian middle grade stories because I think we've got a lot of really great stories coming out over here that maybe you don't get to hear about overseas. I will leave links to where you can find out more information about a message through time down below. If you are planning on picking up this book or you have read it and would like to talk about it, feel free to share your thoughts down below. If you just want to let me know that you're here but you don't leave a comment, feel free to leave a flag for the country that you would like to visit if you had the opportunity to. Otherwise, I hope that we are in the world just staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.