 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher and today I have some brand new release picture books to share with you. These have come out over the last two weeks, I did receive them for review and I am so excited to be able to talk about them. The first two books come from Heshet, so thank you very much to Heshet for sending them to me. The first one is Mother Earth, and I'm going to read the back of the book for this one. It says, Let's stream of what we become. Mother Earth, I am your son. Food and shelter, climate, water, Mother Earth, I am your daughter. A thoughtful and beautifully illustrated collection of nature poems to celebrate the wonder of our precious world from beloved children's author Libby Hawthorne, an award-winning illustrator Christina Booth. This is a stunning poetry anthology picture book that features poems that describe and illustrate the amazing diverse landscapes and nature of Australia. It is a really, really beautiful book. There are different types of poems in this book, so you have lots of really great sentence structure and poetry styles to explore with students. It would be a great mental text if you're doing a unit on poetry. There's fantastic vocabulary in here, and for some really new words or words that would be new to students, there are little explanations of what those words are and I thought that was such a cool way to be able to actually use this book and to highlight that, you know, when you want to choose a word and your word choice is important to think about the meanings of words and play around with them. The poems in here, as I said, they talk about nature, but there are also poems that recognise the bushfire season in Australia and the impact on native animals. There's stuff in here around recycling and invasive pest animals that have been introduced to Australia. One poem that I thought was really cool was one that referenced state-specific plants and animals in need of protection, and it highlights which state they're from, which I thought was great. Even just the way poems are placed on the page, so you have a poem, one here, one here, and then this one is actually upside down because the poem is about lying on your back looking up at the tree, so just the way that it's placed on the page is symbolic of where it is. It's not there on the upside down poem in this book, and I just thought that was fabulous. The other thing that I thought was really cool, and I don't know, well I'm assuming that this was intentional, I don't know if it was, the title has this beautiful rainbow mother of pearl look when you see it up close, I don't know if it's going to come up on camera, but some of the pages just have these beautiful pops of rainbow, and it's not every page or every other page, it's just randomly throughout the book, but it was a nice little thread. And the other thing that I really loved was the end papers at the start and the end of both haikus, and haikus are some of my favourite poems. I love writing haikus, and I love reading them. So this is a really gorgeous book, and I think it would make a great collection, 20 Classroom Library. Then I think perhaps, and I hate to choose favourites, but I think this might be my favourite book in this video, and maybe one of my favourite picture books for the year, because this is The Gargoyle by Zana Freyland. Zana Freyland is one of the most beautiful writers out there. She writes mostly middle grade fiction, but has written picture books as well, and the way that she uses language is just stunning. And I have to admit this book did make me tear up a little bit. I got a little bit emotional while reading it. So the back of the book says his old, this gargoyle, very old, older than me, older than anyone. He looks tired. If I had a seat, I would give it to him. A moving story about a gargoyle forced off his rooftop to make way for a new development in a barren landscape, and the child who encounters him on an overcrowded train. This book is stunning. First up, the illustrations, and the way this gargoyle is drawn by Ross Morgan is just stunning. It is very much a book about conservation, but more than that is about aging and legacies and how we as a society treat our people, but also places that are old. The entire time that the gargoyle is on the train, people are ignoring him, like his old, his leaking rusted water all over the floor, and people just sort of, as you would recognise, people do on trains, they just move away from it. They don't pay attention to it, but this child just stares at the gargoyle, and there is a scene where the gargoyle is forced off the train, and I was just, I was devastated. I won't lie. Like the way that it's written, the emotive nature of the illustrations, it was upsetting. And this is a picture book. It's definitely a picture book that can be enjoyed at all ages, but is probably most impactful in middle and upper years of primary or even in high school. As I said, designer is just really amazing at constructing sentences. We have lots of simple, compound and complex sentences that work together to create a rhythm and a flow in the story, and just the most beautiful vocabulary, like aching and shuffles, herched, rattling, blazing, waxing, waning, despair, like such stunning language choices. Beautiful to explore, beautiful to take and then apply in your own writing. I don't know. I think this might be my favourite picture book of the year. Like it was just so beautiful and touching and moving. It's sad, but it's hopeful, and the conservation element comes in because the little boy finds something left behind by the gargoyle and is able to start something new and then spends the rest of the book hoping that he'll see that gargoyle again. And he doesn't, but we do. The hidden illustration and the hidden images, and this is just, it's beautiful. So highly, highly recommend. And then the last book was sent to me by Alan and Unwin. So thank you very much to them. This is Feelings, a Wild Brass Sophie, Williamson Gavin Scott. This is a very simple picture book. It is a counting book from one to ten and then back again. So it's great for counting forwards and backwards. And it's about all of these animals and the antics that they get up to. They're all little baby animals. They're all doing something that's fun or a little bit cheeky. We count all the way up to ten with the different animals and then we count backwards and we see what happens after their actions. And it is just a really beautiful little book. It does feature big feelings and big emotions and the language that goes along with that. There's great words like restless and ashamed and frustrated and reassured and bold and peaceful. Great words to share with younger readers. The illustrations are beautiful and soft. Like they're just simply stunning. I love the color choices in here. It's bright, but it's not in your face bright. And it's perfect for very small readers. All right. So those are my recent reads that are also new releases. I will leave links to where you can find out more information on them down below. In the comments, I would love to know if you're planning on picking any of them up. Alternatively, if you have read something recently released for kids, either pitch books or middle grade books, feel free to let me know in the comments. I would love to check them out. I hope that wherever you're on the world, just staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Bye, everyone.