 Hi guys it's Steph here from Little Bookish Teacher and welcome or welcome back to my channel. Today's video is probably going to be relatively short but I wanted to share with you guys some books that I have been buying for my future niece or nephew. So my sister is currently pregnant and we don't know the gender yet and I say niece and nephew you know loosely because at this point we don't really know how the baby will identify as they grow up but that said my sister and I are the only two siblings in our family. This is the first child for my sister and first grandchild for my parents and we're all very excited and I did tell my sister that I would not be buying all of the other baby stuff that everyone else is going to offload on her because they will because we come from quite a large family. I told her that I would be the book buying auntie and apparently she's okay with that so I've already started collecting some board books for her. She doesn't really have a kids book collection at all. I think she trusts me to pick books for her child so I wanted to share the first six books that I have picked up and that I'll be holding on to for a little while. I decided to go with board books because they're a little bit more durable initially. They're a little bit easier to handle. They're smaller in overall size and they can be chewed on thrown around and thrown into bags and pretty much nothing's really going to damage them too much. So I had to get an alphabet and a counting book just because that's kind of expected but I wanted to get something special. So I found these beautiful ABCs in 123 books by Bronwyn Bancroft. Bronwyn Bancroft is a First Nations author illustrator here. She has plenty of beautiful books but I just love these. Very simple interior, gorgeous illustrations. If we're going to go for the basics let's go for something very Australian and build up that respect for First Nations culture from a very young age. Next are two sort of classics here that I pretty much give to anyone who has a baby because I just love them so much. There is Where is the Green Sheep by Mem Fox. This is just a fabulous book to read in general. It is so fun and whimsical and funny as you try and track down the green sheep who is nowhere to be found and you meet all of these funny sheep. It's great for teaching opposites and just generally being very bright and colourful and engaging to look at. I also had to include Diary of a Wombat which you know even though a baby is probably not going to appreciate the amount of writing in this book there's a beautiful style to it and it's just an absolute classic and an award winner and all of that and Mothball is one of my favourite Australian picture book characters. I have been collecting all of the books in this series for myself so I couldn't not get a copy for Future Baby. And then I also wanted to get some books that from a very young age will highlight that it is amazing to just be you. That you are loved, there are people who want to see you flourish and see you do exactly what it is that you can do. I had to get All The Ways to Be Smart by Davina Bell and Alison Colboys. This is just a book I have loved ever since it first came out. I received a review copy of it many years ago and just fell in love with it. It celebrates the uniqueness in every person and I think that's important from a very young age. Similarly by the same author and illustrator duo I have under the love umbrella which is just a beautiful book that celebrates joy and love and knowing that no matter what happens there are people who will love you and take care of you and I think both of these must have in any book collection but especially when children are young so they hear it from an early age they're getting these beautiful positive messages. All right so those are the books that I have started buying for my future niece and nephew. In the comments I would love to know if there are any picture books that you think are on the must have list for families with new children. If you want to let me know that you're here but you don't want to leave a comment feel free to leave an umbrella emoji down below. Otherwise I hope 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.