 Hi everyone, it's Steph here from Little Bookish Teacher and today I have some more new release titles from Alan and Unwin. These books were all sent to me for review from the publisher so thank you very much to them and I'm really excited to share them with you. As always when I film one of these videos I'm going to go in readership age order so I'm going to start off with the picture books. Picture books on their own tend to be pretty open to interpretation for age category. Some are definitely geared toward younger audiences, some are geared to older audiences but a lot of the time there's a bit of wiggle room in here. I'm going to start off with Duckling Runs Away by Margaret Wilde and illustrated by Vivienne Toe. This is a dynamite duo. They both work together on a book called The Sloth Who Came to Stay which is a book that I absolutely adore. This one is about Duckling who has a bit of an argument with her mother and declares that she is running away and never coming back and so off she totals, she walks past her friends who are all happily with their families and their mothers and doing their thing and telling her no no don't run away everything will be fine. She's very determined, she keeps running away until eventually she realizes that maybe she's not quite as angry or annoyed as she first thought and she finds her way back home. As with always I always get these little cell sheets from Ellen and I'm went about the book and I really liked where Margaret Wilde got her inspiration for this book. So she said that it was from something that happened decades ago when her niece had an argument with her mother and packed up her favorite toy and her piggy bank and things and just wandered off and got as far as the next door neighbor's house and then turned around and came back and she talked about how it was like this little show of independence that ended happily for everyone and was a learning experience for everyone involved and I thought that that was just such a cute little premise for a picture book because it's also very highly relatable. Of course in this story the Duckling is in a very safe environment, it's a farm setting, it's not like she could have gone that far and her mother always knew where she was so there is that safety element to the story so that is also important. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and sweet all the way through the book and I just loved reading it, it was absolutely gorgeous. Then there is the month that makes the year by Inda Amadzari and the tagline on this is a joyful celebration of the spiritual practice of Ramadan and I was really eager to read this because I don't have a lot of books about Ramadan or Eid and I really need to have more of them in my collection. So this is an exploration of Ramadan through the eyes of a young Muslim child. She's joining Fasting for the first time and at first it's hard and she's learning about why it's important to her family and to her culture and as she gets further into Ramadan she realizes that she can do all of these amazing things. She may not be able to do everything exactly the same as everyone else but with some adjustments she's still participating in everything, she is being part of her cultural celebration and she's learning more and more about what that means to her and to the people that she loves. This story was written based off the author's own lived experience and I think it's a really important text from Muslim children and non-Muslim children as well because it helps to teach understanding and awareness and cultural acceptance which is the most important thing. I absolutely loved reading this, I think it's going to be a really really important picture book that comes out this year and hopefully we get more like it. Then we had Sky Dragon, book six, Rescue Light by Arndo, this book no matter which way I hold it is going to be super shiny because it's super shiny. I have only read books five and six in this series so I'm having to use a lot of context clues to pick up sort of past history as well as what's currently going on in the story. This is a older junior fiction slash middle grade title that follows Amber who has the ability to connect and communicate with insects and they help her do things like fly and listen to her commands and whatnot when she gets into situations where she needs a bit of a helping hand. In this story she ends up on an island that has a very rare bird that is being threatened by the introduction of an oil company that is planning on drilling on the island. That company is in talks with the local government and in order to prevent the environmental impact of that company moving into the island, Amber and her allies need to prove that there is a very strong colony of these rare birds on the island and that they are not extinct because the local government has said you know if there is going to be an environmental impact then we don't want anything to do with this deal and so that's what Amber sets out to do. There is also a reunion and reveal of a character in this story that is a that has a close relationship to Amber that happens at the very end so as with all of these these are serial stories so you get the lead into the next book so that will probably come out in the next couple of months. And then finally there is The Glow by Sophie Laguna and illustrated by Mark McBride. This is a middle grade title, it's middle grade horror and it is kind of creepy so you have Megan and Lee who are best friends. Megan loves to draw and she loves coming up with these weird creepy strange monster type characters and has always loved doing that. And Lee is her best friend and Lee loves writing stories and so together they create these amazing worlds and experiences for these characters. But then one day Megan notices that everyone around her seems to be obsessed with their devices and that there's this strange blue light coming from the devices and the people who are looking at them are not particularly responsive and it begins to freak her out and she goes to Lee and Lee's similarly not affected like Megan and they begin to try and investigate what's going on which leads them to a cave along the coastline where this same strange blue light is emanating from inside and there they discover what is hiding inside The Glow. And it is part adventure, part epic battle, part story of friendship and artistry and it is just a really cool time like I was a bit apprehensive going into the book but I had a really great time. So similarly there was some information about the book which I thought I'd share with you just so you get an idea of where the idea for this story came from. Sophie has written that during the writing process her and Mark had had conversations about alien invasion and about technology that turns on humans and that's where the idea sort of came from and that people's reliance and addiction to screen time was an influence in the story and particularly the way that it threatens people's imagination because you no longer have to think things through for yourself and come up with things because you're constantly bombarded with other people's content. So I thought that was really interesting. It's a very very cool story and this would be perfect for kids who are middle grade aged who love spooky creepy things. So thank you to Ellen and I'm going again for sending me these books. I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to read and review them in the comments. I'd love to know if you have read any of them or if you're planning on picking them up. Alternatively feel free to share any other recommendations that you have read recently or if you just want to let me know that you're here but you don't want to leave a comment feel free to leave a duck emoji down below. I hope that wherever you're on the world you're staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.