Kitty Burns Florey

ORDER A COPY FROM AMAZON or FIND ONE AT YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSELLER

From the CLEVELAND PLAIN-DEALER's
"New in Paperback" column:
"In Syracuse, N.Y., where Florey was a student at St. John the Baptist Academy in the 1950s, she considered diagramming sentences 'a lark' that just coincidentally gave her an unshakable understanding of English. This delightful little book is her homage to that lost art and a wistful bit of nostalgia for an era when self-improvement might mean better language skills, not flatter abs.”

"This gem from copy editor Florey is a bracing ode to grammar; it's laced with a survivor's nostalgia for classrooms ruled by knuckle-cracking nuns who knew their participles." -- People magazine

SISTER BERNADETTE'S BARKING DOG: THE QUIRKY HISTORY AND LOST ART OF DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES -- an expanded, enhanced, digressive, and illustrated version of the essay of the same name that I published in 2004.

Chosen by Julia Turner, senior editor at Slate.com, as her choice for best book of 2006: "Florey writes with verve about the nuns who taught her to render the English language as a mess of slanted lines, explains how diagrams work, and traces the bizarre history of the men who invented this odd pedagogical tool. And unlike so many of today's microhistorians, who seek to demonstrate how zippers, azaleas, or hopscotch explain the world, Florey is refreshingly content to recount her tale without any suggestion that the diagramming of sentences somehow illuminates the American character. It's a great read."

From a rave review by Charles Harrington Elster in the Wall Street Journal: "A pleasantly discursive and affectionate tribute to an antiquated art. Ms. Florey closes with a levelheaded assessment of diagramming, listing its virtues but acknowledging its weaknesses."

And another, from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "You don't have to be over age 50 or a Catholic school graduate to enjoy SISTER BERNADETTE'S BARKING DOG....Florey's keen memories of being schooled in this art and her humorous affection for it are contagious....Try it, you'll like it."

Also from Arthur Salm in the San Diego Union Tribune "Florey...rattles off crackling prose in a no-nonsense voice that is all the more delightful when she ventures into playful nonsense. And playful nonsense, in the end, is much of what SISTER BERNADETTE'S BARKING DOG is all about....Friendly. And fun."

Chicago Tribune Editor's Pick!
"Diagramming sentences may have gone the way of the slide ruler, but this charming little book makes deconstruction of language fun. In this illustrated personal history, the author, a long-time copy editor, explores the birth and death of language mapping. In this handsome book, subjects, predicates, articles, gerunds and participles dance across the page, bringing delight to those who venture into the party."
Elizabeth Taylor, literary editor, Chicago Tribune

From Sara Nelson, editor, Publishers Weekly: "Part memoir, part literary gossip, but mostly a guide to the lost art of sentence diagramming, the book, penned by copy editor Kitty Burns Florey, hilariously examines the history of grammar....The book, in other words, does everything [Lynne] Truss's [EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES] does, and then some."

"[A] wistful, charming, and funny ode to a nearly lost art."
June Casagrande, author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies

Thanks to everyone who has made this book such a success, including the bookstore people and fans I met on my "mini-tour" of the West Coast in April: Berkeley, San Francisco, and Seattle. It was great!