 Hi everyone. My name is Steph. This is Little Bookish Teacher and welcome or welcome back to my channel. Today I'm here to share another Australian middle grade title that I absolutely loved and that is What About Tao by Oliver Pomavan. I actually listened to this as an audio book on Libby and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a really, really gorgeous story set in a small rural town and I believe it was listed as a notable book for the young readers category for the CBCA this year. I'm kind of disappointed it didn't make the shortest because I actually really enjoyed this story and sort of the themes that it brought along with it. So I'm going to read you the blurb as it is on Goodreads. It says, in his signature style, Oliver creates a fabulously diverse and heartfelt duo in town Kedir and they're sometimes hilarious and sometimes heart-wrenching dilemmas of culture and belonging in a remote rural community. Throw in some slam poultry and it might just end in a lifelong friendship and a whole lot more understanding. So this is the story of two families who moved to the small town of Magulla. You have Tao's family who are Vietnamese Australian, their third generation Vietnamese Australian. Both Tao and his parents have been born and have grown up in Australia but they come from the city and so their arrival into this small town really sets things in motion and Tao is determined to find his place and to be part of the school community. His school is so much smaller than it was in the city and so he sees this opportunity to kind of stand out and make new friends and to feel like he belongs. Then a second family arrives in town that is Kedir's family. They've come from Syria to escape the war and the town is very welcoming and they want to make sure that Kedir's family are accepted and feel safe but Kedir himself is feeling very overwhelmed. He's kind of resentful that they've had to come to Australia without his father and he doesn't want to be there but because Tao was the new kid his teacher asks if Tao can help Kedir settle in but Kedir is still very angry and frustrated and doesn't want to be involved and so it's how these two boys build a relationship and they build a relationship around poetry, how they find connection. It deals very much with Tao feeling almost resentful that he's been put in this position because he doesn't know how to help Kedir and he sees the fact that Kedir relies on him so heavily and prevents him from you know being with his other friends as something that is a source of frustration for him so it does deal quite heavily with friendship dynamics particularly in grade six as these kids are really finding themselves and building friendships and relationships with the people around them while also building empathy because Tao has to learn about Kedir's experiences and why he is the way that he is and that causes him to stop and reflect on his own actions in the way that he is viewing the situation. Tao and Kedir face xenophobic comments from people not necessarily in their town but in surrounding small towns and they have to deal with it and that's something that Tao has never had to deal with because he to his mind he is Australian, his family is of Vietnamese but they've been born and raised in Australia so he is Australian but other people think of him as other and that's the first time that he's ever really experienced that so that's confronting for him. There is a lot of reflection on that idea of not belonging and wanting to belong and how do you build yourself up in a community so that you do feel like you're part of it. I loved the exploration of slam poetry as a method for communicating how you're feeling in this story. There is a huge amount of empathy from all of the characters that we see throughout the story, whether it's developing empathy or constantly demonstrating that and most of all it deals with that whole idea of being the new kid in school and so many kids go through that when they move schools for various reasons and oftentimes the kids don't have any control over that and so to have a middle grade story that deals very heavily with being the new kid, how challenging that can be but also how rewarding it can be is really important so this would make a really great class read aloud particularly around that idea of developing empathy for others. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the audiobook was fantastic, Oliver Pomavan narrates the audiobook so if you can get access to it it's fantastic, I found it on Libby so a lot of local libraries here in Australia will probably have access to it. It was just a really great story with wonderful themes that would make a perfect conversation starter in a classroom. I will leave links to where you can find out more information about the story down below. If you've read it feel free to have a chat to me about it in the comments, otherwise 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 bookstack emoji down below. I hope that wherever you're on the world just staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching, bye everyone.