{"id":4455,"date":"2008-10-25T11:53:01","date_gmt":"2008-10-25T10:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/wp\/?p=4455"},"modified":"2021-11-15T13:41:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T13:41:44","slug":"twinkle-twinkle-little-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/twinkle-twinkle-little-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars by Gervase Phinn &#8211; review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"text-element body\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-4-3 image-review alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/img\/twinkle.jpg\" alt=\"Twinkle twinkle little stars\" width=\"183\" height=\"260\" \/> This is a little cracker! The author, Gervase Phinn, has spent most of his working life surrounded by children, having been both a teacher and a school inspector. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars is a compilation of stories that reflect the unique picture of the world from a child\u2019s point of view. It\u2019s hilarious but manages to resist being cute and sugary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Part of the charm of the book is that the children are from rural communities in the Yorkshire Dales. If you are, like me, a southern townie, you will find observations of country and animals quite enchanting. Gervase encouraged a small boy to show off his counting skills. \u201cHow many sheep can you see in that field?\u201d asks our hero. \u201cI can see all on \u2018em\u201d the boy replies. \u201cNo I meant how many altogether. Could you count them for me?\u201d. \u201cWell, there\u2019s five Swalesdales and six Texels, three hybrids and four hoggits. That makes eighteen in total, dunt it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars captures the Dales accent marvellously. The chapter Simone and William Learn to Speak Proper is one of my favourites. \u201cMiss, I can\u2019t find mi readin\u2019 book. I don\u2019t know weer I\u2019ve gone an\u2019 putten it.\u201d \u201cI cannot find my reading book,\u201d the teacher repeated slowly and precisely, \u201cbecause I do not know where I have put it. There is no such word as \u2018putten\u2019.\u201d The teacher wrote a sentence on the blackboard: \u201cI have putten my book on the teacher\u2019s desk.\u201d She asked the class what was wrong with that sentence. \u201cMiss, tha\u2019s gone and putten \u2018putten\u2019 when tha should \u2018ave putten \u2018put\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars is a lovely little book and sure to be much appreciated by teachers, parents and grandparents. You don\u2019t have to live north of Watford to recognise the innocent view of life and it\u2019s good to know that computers and the internet have not yet eroded childhood.<\/p>\n<p>Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars<br \/>\nAuthor: Gervase Phinn<br \/>\nPublished by: Penguin, Michael Joseph<br \/>\nPrice: \u00a310.00<br \/>\nISBN 978-0-718-15417-2<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Book review by Chrissie Walker \u00a9 2018<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a little cracker! The author, Gervase Phinn, has spent most of his working life surrounded by children, having been both a teacher and a school inspector. Twinkle, Twinkle, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,3485],"tags":[908,1715,145,1713],"class_list":["post-4455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-culture-and-art","tag-children","tag-gervase-phinn","tag-literature","tag-twinkle-twinkle-little-stars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4455"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9592,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions\/9592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}