 Hi everyone my name is Steph, this is Kidlet Joy where we talk about kids, middle fiction and young adult titles and today I'm really excited to share with you my TBR for the picture this readathon in April. So the picture this readathon is a readathon that is all about celebrating picture books and you know that I love them here on this channel and it is hosted by Shelly from Shelly Swearing-Gen and Jack from Spreadbook Joy and they have come up with this wonderful readathon. I think this might be the third year, I'll leave the actual number of views down below but I think it might be the third year where we just read and celebrate the amazing work that occurs in children's literature through picture books. The readathon is month long, it takes place from the first till the 30th of April and it does have a hashtag, I believe it is hashtag picture this 2024 and there are some really open-ended prompts that you can interpret in any way as well as a bonus challenge. So both Shelly and Jack have picked three keywords to provide prompts for this readathon so there is joy, night, peach, nature, blue and change and then the bonus challenge is to do a deep dive into a children's picture book illustrator. So I thought I would share with you the picture books I'm going to be reading for this readathon. There are a couple of re-reads in here for me for the illustrator deep dive but most of the picture books are going to be new to me books that I'm really excited to pick up in April. So for the prompt of joy I'm going to read The Magical Yet. This is by Angela DiTolizzi and the art is by Lorena Alvarez. I'm really excited to read this one. This one is all about being able to achieve what you set your mind to through the power of yet so I'm excited to finally pick this one up. It's been sitting in my to-be-read pile for a while. For the prompt of night I'm going to be reading What You Need to Be Warm by Neil Gaiman. This is a poem I believe. It's part of his work as the UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador but not only has Neil Gaiman written the poem but there are 13 artists who have illustrated this poem throughout the book and it's all done in this beautiful black, white and orange style. This also fits in for one of my Bookman prompts to read a book that has black, white, and orange cover so I'm excited about that but I've been meaning to pick this up for ages and I've just been holding off on it so I'm very excited Neil Gaiman is an author that I have really enjoyed in the past so I'm excited to see what his poetry is like. Then for the prompt peach I just tried to find something that was vaguely peach coloured. I have tried to just pick things that are on my TBR for this except for the illustrated deep dive and I've gone with Lila Greer Teacher of the Year by Andrea Beatty and illustrated by David Roberts. This is part of the questionnaires series and I've been meaning to start it and why not start here? So it's not necessarily coming up on camera but some of the lines are kind of peachy coloured so I'm excited. I'm looking forward to this one. For the prompt nature I am planning on reading Tree by Claire Saxby and illustrated by Jess Rackleift. This is a powerhouse of an Australian author illustrated duo. This book is coming out on the 3rd of April so it's really good timing for it and I'm looking forward to reading my review copy so I was set in this by Alan Unwin and it is an exploration of the tree and I can't wait. Claire Saxby does an amazing job walking the line of narrative nonfiction so having a wonderful narrative story while also incorporating facts about various things in nature. You sort of heard jam so I'm looking forward to diving into this one a whole lot because these two are some of my favourite author illustrators. Then for the prompt blue I'm going to be reading Books Make Good Friends by Jane Mount. I have sort of flipped through the pages of this one but I haven't really sat down and read it. It is all about celebrating the amazingness of books and the love of reading and a joy of recommending books. Every page has a whole list of book recommendations. Even the cover is just piles and piles of books and at some point I probably want to use this to create some reading lists for this channel as well in terms of things that I haven't read before to try and review. So I'm very excited because I keep going on I'm just going to sit down and read it but I'm like I want time to savor this book. April is going to be my month of savouring books because I will have holidays and I'm using it as a chance to reset before the next term so this book it's the perfect time to read this book. And then for the final prompt change I'm actually going to overlap this with my Illustrator Deep Dive. I didn't have any new to me books in my collection that I'm waiting to read that were about change so I decided to go with one book that will overlap into the Illustrator Deep Dive which means it's a reread and it is Little Light by Kelly Canby. This is a gorgeous book about what happens when you break down the walls quite literally between different groups of people and you begin to learn about different cultures, different groups of people. So it's about change in society. Kelly Canby is an author illustrator who I absolutely adore. I have seen her work in many middle fiction titles. For the purpose of the Illustrator Deep Dive I'm going to be using her as my author to explore but just through her picture book works. So I'm still waiting on one book to arrive. It was the only, it was only one of two books that I purchased for this. So I already owned Little Light. You guys have heard me talk about Timeless before so I absolutely adore this book. It's also one of the CVCA shortlisted books this year so I'm excited I get to go back to it. There's also the whole story which I can't wait to go back and read because the, aside from being just a fantastic illustrator Kelly Canby is awesome at using language and words and wordplay to tell her stories. And then one of the two books that I have purchased for this is Rodney and I don't know very much about this at all. It does have her signature bright color style but the illustrations are a little bit different. There's more of a collage feel to this one so I'm excited to explore it. And then the book that I'm waiting on is All the Lost Things and I am really, really looking forward to exploring these. Now she has also illustrated some picture books written by other people. I'm going to start off with these five and then see if I can get a hold of the other ones and explore those as well. But her five primary works where she is the author illustrator are going to be my target for this. So stay tuned. I'm going to do a video in April all about these Kelly Canby books. I will leave a link to both the Readathon hosts down below as well as their announcement videos if you want to find out more information. I'm really excited to participate. I love picture books so much and April is the perfect time to just take some time and explore them in more depth for a purpose and I can't wait. In the comments I'd love to know if you are participating in the picture this Readathon even if it's just reading one picture book. I do highly recommend it to everyone. Picture books are for everyone. They bring so much joy and are so fun and full of beautiful messages. Even the most simple of picture books can have the most beautiful message so I hope that you will join in. 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 treat emoji down below otherwise I hope that we're in the world just staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.