 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher, and welcome or welcome back to my channel. Today I'm really excited to share a review of Paul Jennings new book, The Luriket Tree. I have had a very long, long relationship with Paul Jennings books because his books have been around since just before I was born and I remember reading them in primary school and throughout high school and now as an adult and seeing the way that his writing has changed from his very early books to what he's currently producing for middle grade and teen readers is just incredible. And I suppose what I'm really impressed by at the moment is the way he's able to tackle very deep, hard hitting topics with care and thoughtfulness and just beautiful language that hooks in a reader and helps you to process those hard hitting topics in a way that makes it accessible to everyone. For those of you who don't know, The Luriket is a younger YA upper middle grade title that follows Emily, who is our protagonist, and her twin brother Alex as they have to process and deal with the fact that their father has an inoperable terminal brain tumour. The three of them live on a property where they are trying to regrow local forest and encourage local native wildlife back into the space and Emily is very passionate about that alongside her father and she will do anything to protect that whereas her twin brother Alex is very much a character who lives a little bit in his head. He's not as interested in sort of that reforestation process which is not to say he doesn't care but he's just it's not his passion and when they find out that their father has been diagnosed with this and they don't know how long he has left with them it starts to cause friction between the two siblings because they both process their grief in very different ways and their father is unwell and can't help them through that. He tries but he like he doesn't always have the energy or the strength to do it. They are surrounded by a support network. Their father's best friend is his doctor. There is a local teen who also works in wildlife protection who comes and checks on them and who Emily has a crush on and there is also another character who comes into their lives at just the right time in order to offer support. As I said this you know this book is a very hard-hitting sort of story as these two kids process their grief for their dying father and while it is sad there is also this thread of hope that runs through it particularly at the end that they will be okay and this entire story is told in a really interesting way because it is actually it's told by Emily but it's told by Emily as she is writing a memoir for one of her high school literature classes. It's broken up into parts based on seasons and at the end of every part she gets feedback from the teacher who is marking her work and because it's only told through Emily's perspective we only ever see her side of things which also makes it really interesting. A really great thing for discussion with kids about okay well this is the way that Emily perceives how events played out. Does that make it the only way that things played out? There's also a really fantastic scene where the twins find their way back to each other and realize that they are important to each other no matter how mad they are at each other and I just deeply appreciate it. For such a small book it packs a really big emotional punch and it was just wonderful to read it so thank you very much to the publisher Ellen and Unwin for sending me the review copy. I'm very very grateful to have read it. If you are giving this book to a child I would just make sure that they are okay with the themes in here particularly around death of a parent because you never know what's going on in someone's life so be aware of that when you are recommending it but it is a glorious book. I'm really glad that I read this I hope that you guys will consider picking it up I will leave all the links for it down below. If you want to let me know that you're here but you don't want to leave a comment feel free to leave a bird emoji down below otherwise I hope that we'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.