 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher and today I want to talk about Xavier in the meantime by Kate Gordon. This is an Australian middle grade title, it is one of the notable books for the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year Younger Reader category for 2023, that's a mouthful, and it is the companion book to Esther's Good Right Things which actually won this same category in 2021. This is a very shiny copy that I have because it's actually a copy from my school's library because when the Notables List came out I just started going through the list to see what we had in our school library. Turns out not a lot and the leading teacher who is looking after the library and either she have gone through and tried to order as many of the books that we were missing as we could, hopefully more of these will be showing up in videos in the future and also for those of you who don't know the Children's Book Council of Australia is sort of the national body for for book awards in Australia and every August they have the Children's Book Council Awards for that year. The process goes, you have a list of notable books which is sort of a long list then they do a short list which is actually being announced on the 28th of March so then I will have only six books in each category which I will try and read all of the younger reader books that fit into that category as well as probably the early childhood in the pitch book category. So you'll probably see more content about that coming up in the future but this was one that we already had so I decided to pick it up and read it. This is a very very hard hitting middle grade title because it deals with a child who has depression. I'm going to read you the blurb for this one it says sometimes Xavier wakes up feeling hopeless every new doctor this will fix it removing him from school this will fix it the therapy group this will fix it and his dad moving out maybe this will fix it despite his positive affirmations the black dog never really leaves him it watches from the corner of his room never strained too far away waiting for the perfect opportunity to sink its teeth in but Xavier has a plan one he hopes will help all the kids in his support group enlisting the help of best friend Aster he tries to convince his dad to turn the family's sheep farm into a therapy retreat for the group session kids but he's up against decades of tradition his parents who are on a break and the spectre of the black dog can Xavier learn to cherish the moments in between the struggles the moments in the meantime so as I said Xavier is dealing with this depression and it's quite often his depression manifests itself as a black dog that's following him around so that's the black dog mentioned in the blurb on good days sort of the black dog disappears and then other days it's just always there always present and he's always cognizant of it and every chapter in this book begins with an affirmation which is something that his therapy group has been working on and his best friend Aster also has her own issues that she's working through and so together they've bonded over that and they support each other and they recognize when the other person is having a really bad day and they check in and all of that there's also some stuff going on with Aster's family she lives with her aunt and her dad and her foster sister so there's a lot of complicated dynamics and things going on in the background as well as in the present moment for Xavier I really loved the representation of the therapy group in here that you know there's a group of kids who are in a group together but they're not necessarily friends and they don't really know how to relate to one another because of the issues that they're dealing with and they have a group leader who's who is trying her absolute best to get them to connect and to connect with them and to find a way to help them but sometimes that's really tricky and complicated because they're human beings and they're all dealing with pretty significant issues and Xavier's idea of using the sheep on his dad's farm is something for him to work towards because he thinks it will be it will really work in a lot of ways this book is also linking to sustainable farming and things like that because Xavier doesn't like the fact that the sheep are on the farm purely to be raised and then killed for their meat and he wants to find another way for that farm to be successful moving forward but it's really great how he has the support of not only Aster but also his therapy group leader and a friend that they will have from the local coffee shop and also the way that they work to convince Xavier's dad that it's worthwhile to at least try it and to see how it goes. It also does feature on page depressive episodes that lead to hospitalization so that's not shied away from in this book because some days are good and some days are really really really bad. To that end I would say be you know be mindful of who is picking up this book because it could be triggering for some kids who might be experiencing these things but it is beautifully written and it does show that Xavier has a lot of support and that Xavier recognizes that he has support and sometimes that even though he knows that he's got support and he knows the strategies and what to do that doesn't always stop these things from happening and of course one of the biggest stresses in his life at this point is the fact that his parents have separated but they're not getting divorced and they both insist no they're not they're not separated separated but they're living in separate places and separate houses and Xavier is staying with his mum and his dad is working on the farm but whenever he moves between the two places he's internalized the feeling of oh they must be so relieved to have passed me on to the next person so they get a break from me and so he's also dealing with that in this particular story even though it may or may not be accurate to actually what his parents are feeling. For all the really heavy mental health topics that are discussed in this book there is a sense of hope towards the end and a real sense of connection between all of the characters so if you are a fan of really hard-hitting contemporary middle grade titles Xavier in the meantime is one that's probably worth checking out. I will leave a link to where you can find the book and the author's website down below if you would like to find out more. If you've read the book and would like to talk about it I'd love to hear your thoughts on it otherwise feel free to leave a sheep emoji if you just want to let me know that you're here. I hope that wherever you're 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.