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Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog
The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences

by Kitty Burns Florey



      Making a Point for Diagramming Here

So Much for a Title That Tells You What You're about to Get

When the title doesn't tell you what the author is about but the illustration of it does, a reader might guess she is in for a ride somewhat different than the ones she has taken when she's opened the pages of books on other occasions.

Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog is such a book. If I tell you this book is about diagramming sentences you must -I repeat must- not run screaming from this review. For this book is indeed different and wholly entertaining.

First, Author Kitty Burns Florey knows what a hook is. She knows it as well as great novelists and the best screenwriters. The book opens with Sister Bernadette writing on a blackboard with a flourish, fastening her young charges to the miracle of language by drawing them a picture -which is, after all, what diagramming is. We feel the intensity of why the author was so taken with such a demonstration (and such a personality). With that sharing of emotion, we also get an inkling that this will be a diagramming exercise like none we've ever taken before.

So, we have here not only a lesson on learning syntax by using art -call it geometry, if you prefer- but we also get the anecdote, the thrill, the good and tender story behind the dry and humdrum facts.

Second, we have here an exquisite hardback ($19.95 US), which makes this book an ideal gift for anyone who loves language -from a copywriter to the writers of the nightly news (who, I hope, still do love language!). And the book's design! Rarely does it deserve a mention but this one surely does. David Konopka merits accolades for making this lovely book by Kitty Burns Florey a work of art, just like the art of language that Foley is working to get across to her readers.

Third, there are just enough scholarly touches to help Dog Barking maintain its authority. We have annotation. Yes, on the first page, no less! An allusion to Twain and Fenimore Cooper; annotation throughout entertains and convinces us of Florey's erudition.

I remember a book from the early 60s about the origins of our alphabet that was a very unlikely runaway bestseller. There are many similar ones on the same subject now but none that that capture the imagination of a nation like that one did. It was magic that made it a book club favorite. Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog may match its popularity. It is indeed the rare, fine combination of teaching and touching.

The Book

Melville House Publishing
PUBLISHING DATE
FORMAT
ISBN13: 9781933633107
Nonfiction/How-To (Grammar)
More at Amazon.com
Excerpt
NOTE:

The Reviewer

Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Reviewed 2007
NOTE: Reviewer Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the award-winning author of This is the Place, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't -the 2004 winner of USA Book News' Best Professional Book of the Year- and a recently published chapbook of poetry titled Tracings.
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