{"id":35871,"date":"2025-09-22T06:24:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/35871\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T06:24:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:24:06","slug":"donegal-free-book-helps-explain-crumbling-homes-to-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/35871\/","title":{"rendered":"Donegal: Free book helps explain crumbling homes to children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ms Harkin told BBC News NI that she wanted to write a book specifically for children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My family and I know so many people this affects, and I understand how difficult that conversation with kids can be,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She graduated last summer from Queen&#8217;s University Belfast&#8217;s broadcast production programme, and her final project was a documentary about defective concrete blocks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Working on that inspired me to explore other creative projects around this issue,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;After graduating, I worked as a special needs assistant in a primary school, where I was in contact with so many children in affected communities, which sparked the idea for the story.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said she wanted to keep the book &#8220;melodic and light for young ears, but without downplaying such a huge issue&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It took a number of rewrites to balance the harsh reality some children face with a positive, child-friendly outlook,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ms Harkin told BBC News NI that she wanted to write a book specifically for children. &#8220;My family&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-35871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}