 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher and today I'm here to talk to you about a gorgeous new release, middle grade graphic novel, Ember and the Island of Lost Creatures by Jason Pamant that I recently read and reviewed for Alan and Unwin. So this was sent to me, I did request it and it is an absolutely beautiful little graphic novel. I'm going to start by reading you guys the blurb from the back of the book. So it's fitting in, can be hard, especially when you're as small as Ember. This is Ember. He's hoping his luck changes when Luar, a kindly sea turtle, escorts him across the ocean to a school for little creatures on a wondrous island. There, Ember learns that first days can also be hard, especially when they involve fantastical cave dwellers, ferocious storms, and classmates that aren't interested in making friends. As he struggles to adapt to his school, Ember finds himself at the heart of an otherworldly mystery, facing a strange monster from the deep. And though Ember's classmates may seem of little help, any good student knows appearances can be deceiving and friendship can come from the most unexpected of places. Now this graphic novel was really fun to read. Ember starts off in the world of regular sized humans, but is very, very small and finds that they don't fit in and dreams of finding a place where they can go and really wants to go to school. And they end up on the edge of the ocean where they meet Luar, who is a sea turtle. And Luar tells them about this wondrous place where they went to school when they were very small. And so Luar takes Ember across the ocean to the island of lost creatures and gives Ember lots of advice and then sends him on his way. And as it's said in blurb, this is about first days and first days not going well and not fitting in with your peers despite wanting to make friends and to be part of this little community. The lessons in here are very unique. The teacher is very fond of hands-on experiences. So when they're learning about creatures on the island, they definitely go in search of them, including into dark caves. And Ember spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to connect with other people. So this is a great one for, particularly for kids who have ever had to do a first day of school in a new place where they've had to make friends and they're found it challenging. It's good for kids who struggle to even just start talking to others because Ember is desperately trying to make friends with the other characters in the story. There is obviously a gorgeous fantasy element through here, but there are threads of real animals and real creatures and information about them as well. There is a potential antagonist who may or may not be malevolent, but I absolutely just loved the illustrations in this book. The other thing that I really loved is that Ember has a diary that they keep and we get a few pages in the story. And those few pages are really important to plot points along the way because Ember loses his journal at one point and that becomes very significant. But mostly I just think the illustrative style in here is absolutely wonderful. It reminded me very much of Amulet. So if you have kids or students who are fans of Amulet, they will probably really enjoy this. It does read as a standalone. I don't know if there are other books planned, but you can read this one and not need to read anything else, which is also pretty cool. So yeah, I am very grateful to Alan Unwin for sending me a copy of this. I had an absolute blast reading it. And I'm definitely going to be checking out further graphic novel works by Jason Pamet because this was just delightful. I will leave links to where you can find out more information about Ember and the Island of Lost Creatures down below. If you have read it and would like to talk to me about it, please feel free to do so in the comments or suggest your own favorite middle grade graphic novels. Otherwise, if you just want to let me know that you're here but you don't leave a comment, feel free to leave a shell emoji down below. I hope that we're if 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.