Burnett Books

At my school, "peer review" is my chair visiting my classroom once a semester and from her observations (in combination with student course evaluation) extrapolates whether I am a good teacher or not. This book offers a useful alternative to help support evaluating the status of teaching by using a model to what we use for scholarly research - based it on a written record that is developed in a community of peers and is available for analysis and commentary. I (and a colleague) have found this book to be an outstanding guide for walking us through the process of documenting our teaching. The book is well writing and offers useful suggestions, prompts, and examples for creating a course portfolio and then sharing it with a colleague (or external person) for critical review.

I have heard several of the authors talk at conferences/events over the years and am excited that they share their wisdom in a book. I have found this book to be incredibly useful - it offers a detailed guide to faculty peer review (faculty offering commentary, feedback, and development to faculty peers) through the use of course portfolios. The chapters are as follows:

Chapter 1: Making Teaching and Learning Visible
Chapter 2: Capturing the Intellectual Work of Teaching: The Benchmark Portfolio
Chapter 3: The Benchmark Portfolio: Five Examples
Chapter 4: Inquiring Into Specific Aspects of Teaching: The Inquiry Portfolio
Chapter 5: Soliciting and Writing External Reviews for Course Portfolios
Chapter 6: Using Course Portfolios to Foster Campus Collaboration
Chapter 7: Creating a Campus Community for the Peer Review of Teaching
Chapter 8: Addressing Larger Issues in Peer Review

Thus, the book offers a details guide as to what is peer review to writing a course portfolios to how to start a program on your campus. It should be required reading for all new (and older) faculty and all adminsitrators who think that student coruse evaluations are the only way to measure teaching.

Day of the Minotaur was actually written first. The series tells the story of Eunostos, last minotaur, and the other Beasts that inhabit the Forest of Forever. It tells how the prehuman folk, such as the minotaurs, dryads, centaurs, fauns, Thraie, and Bears of Artemis, left the world of humans to find their own country, where they could live in peace.

Bucolic I think is the term. It gives such a taste for the "outdoor living?", the more natural life. Swann was much ahead of his time or just in step with a smaller group who realized that fate of man was strongly entertwined (?)with that of nature. Paganism seems such a hard oversimplifying term , holistic is more up to date. He called it the "Great mother" now they speak more of Gaia. This is the kind of fantasy that gives you direction and hope in times of pollution.

What a great read. This medical thriller, set in beautiful Boulder Colorado, is engaging, fun, exciting, humorous and smart. Dr. Josh is an innocent man swept up in the fallout of a murder of a child. Always being one to give way too much benefit of the doubt to anyone, Dr Josh finds himself getting sucked in deeper and deeper, eventually fighting for his life and that of his family. This book was a wonderful surprise, I recommend it heartily.

The Mortalist is a first rate medical thriller, part part murder mystery, part science fiction, part philosophically insightful novel. More than just a fascinating "beach read", the novel is packed with insight, medical tidbits providing an interesting and candid insight into the real world of a practicing physician, coupled with extremely entertaining use of language. But more, Barry Burnett has an off-beat sense of humor, unexpected in a thriller, but delightful.

This is a literate and thoughtfully crafted novel, a real page turner, but also one that leaves you wanting more when you finish, hungry for his next book. Burnett weaves his story around philosophic and moral issues that challenge the reader to consider points of view not frequently encountered, but with a light and gentile touch.

Seldom does one encounter such an entertaining novel, artfully combining mystery, humor, insight and philosophy.

Highly recommended!

Author Lois Burnett-Guyinn brings to life a wonderful history of African-American inventors in this book. The Muncie Children's Museum utilizes this book in our Black History Month activities as well as our pre-school ABC Read With Me program. The writing style captures the attention of young children and their parents providing a valuable look at these inventions and their inventors. A must read for all parents and children!

Jama Cashdollar
Executive Director
Muncie Children's Museum
Muncie, Indiana

This is an excellent step back in time into African American History. I purchased this book and read it to my children's 3rd and 4th grade classes. They fell in love with the characters and were captivated from beginning to end. The story is not so long as to lose the attention at this grade level.
I highly recommend this book as an educational tool for all children.

Carol Burnett is probably best known for her television show where she performed in various skits with a talented cast. One might not realize just how shy she was as a kid, or that she never dreamed of being a movie star until college. However, it is all here in this autobiography, a charming and personal account of a life filled with entertaining characters. We learn about Nanny, the woman who raised Carol and her younger sister Chrissy. We find out about Carol's alcoholic parents Jody and Louise, very different people and different influences on Burnett's life. There are many stories of growing up, school, various jobs, and family, each incredibly relatable and great fun to read. It is hard to put this book down. It is written to constantly leave the reader wanting more and never disappointing.

It is obvious that Burnett has a great love for her childhood although she wasn't always the most popular or the richest. She is an ordinary woman with a life that anyone can latch onto. The only disappointment is that it is so short. Burnett skips talking about her famous tv show as well as the marriage that brought her the three children she wrote the book for. It leaves the reader wanting more. Perhaps there will be a sequel one day; it will no doubt be as good as the first.

Although written over 15 years ago, Carol Burnett's
autobio is an amazing one. It covers just about all
(or seemingly so) of her early years in Texas,
her move to California, and at age 21, her move
to New York where she hit the 'big time'.

Carol obviously didn't have it easy. Her family
was impoverished and her mother and father were
absentee parents. Only because of her grandmother,
Nanny, did Carol pull through. Although neither
of Carol's parents survived to see her success,
Nanny did...and for that I'm sure she'll eternally
be grateful.

Unbeknownst to me before reading the book, her mother had
an illegitimate baby girl, Chrissy, which she kept...and this
was back in the 40's when such things were
scorned mercilessly. Luckily, just before
her mother died prematurely, Carol was able to take Chrissy
back to New York where she finished her formative years.

The coverage stops all too soon...Carol's narrative
is especially inviting. I was hoping that a few
bits about "The Carol Burnett Show" and Harvey, Tim,
Vicki, and Lyle would be included, but it's easy
to see why that element was left out.
Although the structure doesn't really take the
form of a letter, the book claims to be a letter
written for her three daughters. A unique format.
My only complaint is that the book contains tens of
pages of Carol's handwritten letters to a guy
named DeNootie (an old friend of hers). In the paperback
version, they are impossible to read because the
print is overpixelated. Ditto for the section of
photographs...the photos are all way underexposed.

A must-read for any Carol fan. Definitely among
the best bios I've ever read or will read.

This book has 3 sections: a brief, but good introduction to the major Arts & Crafts furniture makers, with comments on their relative qualities and places in the movement; construction techniques; and projects. All are well illustrated and all pictures are in color (except, obviously, repros of original black and white photos). Alternative techniques are given for a number of joinery types. Helpful advice and tips are given throughout both the techniques and projects sections. The projects range from quite simple (Morris Chair footstool) to middling complex (various chairs). Some unusual items are also included, such as the Limbert Tabouret, which is a table with four interlocking legs, and the "Lost Stickley Side Table", a Stickley prototype with straight legs in back and splayed in front. Only two really modern pieces are included: a Prairie Style coffee table and an outdoor version of the Morris Chair. The included CD has additional plans. Considering the excellent content, the quality of the book itself, and the bonus CD, this book is quite a bargain.

I was very challanged to expand my skills after I read this book. The projects were interesting and worthy of handing down to my family as heirlooms.

I am not a book person, and I haven't read an entire book in 5 years. I useally have a hard enough time reading magazine articles, but I could't put this book down. When I did finish the Predators, the story was so vivid in my mind, it was like I actually lived it. I am hooked on F.M. Parker and I am getting another one, and another one until I've read them all.

Thousands of young women from Europe came to America with Mormon misionaries and crossed the great plains and the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City, their Zion. Good historical information.

The doll family in the old dollhouse doesn't mind when Cynthia gets Tidy Castle as a present, even when she dismisses their house as Racketty-Packetty House and sticks it behind the door. They had fallen from the "gay and fashionable life" and become shabby over the years since Cynthia's Grandmamma first owned them, but it does not dampen their spirits one bit! They dance in circles until they're hysterical and all fall down laughing, and have much more fun than the lords and ladies in Tidy Castle.

When Cynthia gives the Tidy Castle dolls scarlet fever, the old dolls are quite kind-hearted to their fancy neighbors and all manage to become friends. But when Cynthia expects an important visitor and wants the nurse to burn Racketty-Packetty house, things look quite serious, even for the ever-optimistic old doll family. Fortunately, Queen Crosspatch and her Fairies are quite fond of the Racketty-Packetty dolls, and they will find a way to save Racketty-Packetty House.

This is one of the goofiest, most frenetic doll books ever, with spectacular illustrations by Harrison Cady.

How many of us have awakened to find that our dolls were NOT where we left them the night before? A wonderful read aloud that piques the imagination and prompts great kid discussions of what exactly they DO all night(you are playing with them in the daytime!) Timeless.

This rendition of the beloved book "The Secret Garden" is a wonderful production that is sure to keep you glued to your stereo. I read this book as a child a few times and watched the Hallmark version of the movie, but I always favor the imagination over the cinematic portrayals of characters in books who become your friends.
My daughter is six and received this for Christmas. I didn't know if she was ready for the involved plot of "The Secret Garden", but I thought we'd try the audio version anyway. She fell in love with it and had to listen to it all in one sitting-it's over an hour long-and as soon as she finished it she wanted to begin it all over again. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it as well, and my 3 year old followed along too. We then read the book and found the book to be a bit lengthier and wordy. The abridged version of the audio is great. The accents are marvelous and there is much "scope for the imagination!"

This rendition of the beloved book "The Secret Garden" is a wonderful production that is sure to keep you glued to your stereo. I read this book as a child a few times and watched the Hallmark version of the movie, but I always favor the imagination over the cinematic portrayals of characters in books who become your friends.
My daughter is six and received this for Christmas. I didn't know if she was ready for the involved plot of "The Secret Garden", but I thought we'd try the audio version anyway. She fell in love with it and had to listen to it all in one sitting-it's over an hour long-and as soon as she finished it she wanted to begin it all over again. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it as well, and my 3 year old followed along too. We then read the book and found the book to be a bit lengthier and wordy. The abridged version of the audio is great. The accents are marvelous and there is much "scope for the imagination!"

I feel that the boog was wonderful. I laughed, I cried, and I smiled not knowing what was going out. I loved the book more then a pugy child likes his/her cake!

I have five children, and I read The Secret Garden to my oldest two years ago. My oldest daughter read The Little Princess herself, and she recommended that I read it to my youngest three.

After I finished reading The Secret Garden to the youngest three last spring, I went on a quest to read more Frances Hodgson Burnett. Of the three, I think the little girls prefer The Little Princess. I'm partial to The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy. I thought it was interesting how Burnett insists that her heroines look `queer,' but her hero, Lord Fauntleroy is beautiful. I wonder if that's because she had a son?

The description of the characters and their surroundings is mesmerizing, and you hate for it all to end. I would highly recommend buying this set of the three stories for that reason. You'll want to read them again after you've finished. That's why I include it in my 10 favorite children's books of all time.