 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher, and welcome or welcome back to my channel. For those of you who don't know me, I am a primary teacher and literacy coordinator and avid bookworm. And this is my channel where I share my absolute love for picture books and children's books in general. Today, I am sharing a review of the most recent Scott Stewart release, Brain Is Not Always Right. For those of you who don't know, Scott Stewart writes some of the most amazing, inclusive and empowering kids books out there. This is an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous book. It has two main characters, heart and brain, and they go everywhere together. Heart is impulsive and passionate, loves puppies and creativity and just exploring living life to the fullest. And brain is very analytical and thoughtful and cautious and very afraid of making mistakes. Sound relatable, because it really is. And within this story, they're going everywhere together and brain often rains in hearts impulsivity and it gets to the point where heart really wants to be a musician and brain is just like, no, we'll fail, we'll never be successful, we're not doing that. And just absolutely crushes heart spirit. And it's about how you strike up that balance between your passions and that fear of failure. So the things that I loved about this book is really that great discussion between what the heart wants versus what your brain is telling you about any given situation. It's something that I as an adult to deal with every single day. Kids deal with that all the time as well. And it's a really great conversation starter. It's great for discussing the fear of failure and for what you put out into the world and what you are willing to risk, like that responsible risk taking and how that impacts our response to the world in general. It's also a really good cautionary tale for how easy it is for us to crush someone else's spirit by just constantly telling them, no, you're not good enough, no, you can't do that. No, that's never gonna work. No, this is just not the way that it should be done. When that in fact might be something that is driving someone else and as a society we very easily try to reign back in people who want to just jump feet first into something and try it. And often it's because we tell ourselves, we're protecting them or we're protecting ourselves when in fact what we're doing is inhibiting them and their growth and their ability to learn from situations. As I always tell my students and as any teacher I know tells their students to make mistakes is to learn and to grow and you can't do those things unless you try something and it doesn't go quite the way you want or it fails and you have to figure out what comes next. Like that is a really important discussion. I think this book prompts that. And then it is also about being brave and taking those responsible risks. Like yes, give yourself permission to try that every now and then if you know that it's safe and it's not going to hurt you or anyone else because sometimes taking that risk has more benefits than what you might have initially thought. And I also just think it highlights that oppositional nature of spontaneous versus planned personalities and creativity versus someone who is more analytical and someone who just loves all the lovey mushy stuff compared to someone who is more reserved and quiet and thoughtful in their approach. And I think if you're using this with students it's a great way to say, well, where do you fit on this scale? It's a sliding scale and sometimes you're more one thing than the other. And I think that's a really great reflection tool especially now as we're talking about mental health and wellbeing and really raising that as a focus in schools and talking about how we're feeling and how we respond to situations. So I absolutely adore this book. I think it is fantastic and should be on everyone's shelves. It does have a readership age of four to eight year olds. However, I think what you can unpack in here you could definitely use with middle and upper primary students. I think they could extend this work and the conversation that you have around it. This is an absolutely gorgeous picture book. I will leave the links for it down below so that you can check out more information about it as well as the author's website if you wanna know more about Scott Stewart. If you've read this book I'd love to hear about it in the comments or if you're planning on picking it up or if you know of a similar book that deals with similar themes feel free to share those down below so that other people can find those recommendations or if you just wanna let me know that you're here you could leave a heart or a brain emoji or a heart and brain emoji depending on your personality type. I know that I typically lead with my brain but I do try to be a little bit more balanced especially these days. I hope that wherever you are in the world you're staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.