Daria’s Notebook

Here is a page from Daria’s English notebook. Her teacher was inspired by the Dutch writer Gerard Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you so busy,
It will make you dizzy!

Be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover.

Oh, my children have a care,
Seven is right, but so is even,
Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, dough, or cough?
Don’t be fooled by hiccough.
My advice is never give up!



Trade Paperback available internationally, except in the UK, where it comes out February 15, 2010



Hardcover available in the US & Canada



Available in the Netherlands in January 2010