Digital Commons Network^™

Serafina And The Twisted Staff, Karen Abbott

Children's Book and Media Review

Serafina considers herself the protector of the Biltmore, the Vanderbilt's home hidden in the forests of North Carolina. There she and her best friend Braeden, the Vanderbilt's nephew, have defeated the Black Cloak that had kidnapped generations of men, women, and children. But now, as they try to distinguish friend from foe to uncover the dark force controlling the animals of Biltmore, they face a different enemy. Facing a twisted staff and shape-changing owl sorcerers requires of all of their courage and strength, and they unite to defeat them. Then, just when Biltmore seems secure, Serafina sees a form in …

November 2019 Cbmr Reviews, Various Reviewers

Children's Book and Media Review

No abstract provided.

Neither, Haley Singleton

Children's Book and Media Review

Neither is a mix between a rabbit and a bird. He lives in the land of This and That, where there are only rabbits or birds—not both. Neither struggles to fit in with the rabbits because he's not "rabbity" enough to play with them. He has the same problem fitting in with the birds, because he is not "birdy" enough. Tired of his friendless state, Neither travels to the land of All, where he is accepted and finds friends who love him for his diversity.

Nerdy Babies: Ocean, Amanda Morgan

Children's Book and Media Review

Have you ever wondered what’s in the ocean? Follow the nerdy babies as they explore! In this book, you will learn about what the water in the ocean is like and who the creatures that live in it are. Do you know how deep the ocean is? Do you know how animals keep warm when the water is cold? You’ll find plenty of fun facts to satisfy your curiosity about the ocean.

Musk Ox Counts, Lindsey Smith

Children's Book and Media Review

One musk ox, two yaks, and three elephants might work well as a counting book for most people, but not for Musk Ox. Musk Ox is alone on the first page of the book, so he sets out to find ways to join each of the other pages. In order to make his plan work, he has to do some creative counting - such as combining five goats and one musk ox to make six relatives - but this infuriates Zebra, who just wants to live in a typical counting book.

Mr. Biddles, Kimberly Jackson

Children's Book and Media Review

Mr. Biddles is a content cat. He enjoys inventing in the peace and quiet of his home, until one day someone unexpected shows up. Hobson, the lobster from Maine who appears on Mr. Biddles doorstep, almost immediately becomes useful with his multi-tool lobster claws. He becomes the assistant, roommate, and friend Mr. Biddles didn’t know he was missing. But soon Mr. Biddles notices something is wrong with his new friend. When Hobson confesses that he misses his family back in Maine, Mr. Biddles gets to work. After many failed attempts he invents the “Super Lobster Sightseeing Sidecar!” The two road …

More Short & Sweet Skits For Student Actors: Fifty Sketches For Teens, Jessica Mellor

Children's Book and Media Review

Beginning with an introduction geared towards parents and teacher, More Short and Sweet Skits for Student Actors teaches students how to create an acting resume, what callbacks are, and how to help teenagers succeed if they desire an acting career. The next 113 pages are skits for teenagers to practice with that highlight life as a high-schooler or even as an animal. Some skits include stereotypical girls obsessed with boys and shopping and boys who only care about food; yet there is always the foil character provide some contrast.

Monkey On The Run, Lindsey Smith

Children's Book and Media Review

Who wants to be stuck in a traffic jam when there’s a whole world to see? Definitely not Monkey. When he and his father get stuck on the road, Monkey decides he’s had enough, and takes off. Running through the pages of the book, he encounters all sorts of crazy animals in surprising places, including a lion having a feast, a thieving cow, and raccoons doing laundry. Eventually Monkey makes it back to his father, just in time to arrive at home.

Let's Draw Bugs And Critters With Crayola, Ashley Mckenzie

Children's Book and Media Review

This complete guide to drawing bugs and small animals is filled with step-by-step instructions to draw critters named Buzz, Honey and Bubbles. With diagrams rather than words, each set of instructions starts with a helpful guide at the top of the page that shows the specific shapes used to draw each animal. The instructions then progress from the single shapes to a complete, colored animal.

Benjamin Is An Unusual Duckling, Tanya Lindquist

Children's Book and Media Review

Benjamin is indeed an unusual duckling; he barks instead of quacks. His family loves him, but some of his classmates won’t play with him because they think he’s weird. Benjamin goes on a journey and meets several other different animals, including a deaf bunny, a snake with a lisp, and a bird who can't fly. In the end, Benjamin learns a lot about accepting himself when his barking saves the day.

October 2019 Cbmr Book Reviews, Various Reviewers

Children's Book and Media Review

Contains all 30 Book Reviews for October 2019 in one pdf.

Local Adaptation Of Blue Penstemon: Molecular And Morphological Characterizations Of A Potential Restoration Species For The Northern Basin And Range And Snake River Plain, Jason Mark Stettler

Theses and Dissertations

Penstemon is one of North America's largest endemic genera with over 280 described species. These species are distributed throughout most of North America from the Arctic northern latitudes to tropics of Central America. The genus has historically been divided into six subgenera, but has recently been reorganized into two subgenera following some recent phylogenetic studies. I made a comprehensive assessment of the Penstemon genus' geographic distribution utilizing herbaria databases by ecoregion to discuss the general ecologic adaptations of each historic subgenera. I also assessed the Penstemon genus' bee pollinator diversity utilizing online databases of bee specimen collections associated with Penstemon …

First Record Of Jaguar (Panthera Onca) And Potential Prey Species In Sierra De Quila, Jalisco, Mexico, Efrén Moreno-Arzate, Luis Ignacio Iñiguez-Dávalos, Jorge Servín, María Magdalena Ramírez-Martínez, Milton Cezar Ribeiro, Rafael Sevilla

Western North American Naturalist

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is considered a keystone species for neotropical ecosystems. Jaguar records in natural protected areas (NPAs) are important to manage and maintain the long-term occupancy of the species in a region. The objectives of this study are to report the first jaguar records in the Sierra de Quila, Jalisco, Mexico, and to report observations of potential prey items. Between February 2018 and January 2019, 24 camera traps were placed for 180 days during 3 seasons, with a total capture effort of 3216 trap nights. Four hundred and two independent records were obtained from 17 species …

The North American Beaver (Castor Canadensis) Is Recolonizing The Llano Estacado, Garret D. Langlois, Robert D. Cox, Philip S. Gipson, Richard D. Stevens

Western North American Naturalist

Five millennia ago, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) was extirpated from the Southern High Plains by droughts. Beaver were found to be largely absent from the Llano Estacado, despite exhaustive search efforts. Here we report the first definitive evidence of an extant C. canadensis population recolonizing the Llano Estacado. We further provide some spatiotemporal background information about beaver colonization along the North Fork of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River.


Hace cinco milenios, el castor norteamericano (Castor canadensis) fue extirpado de las Altas Llanuras del Sur por las sequías. Se encontró que los …

Russell Means' Use Of The Universal Ecosystem Metaphor As An Act Of Indigenous Resistance, Clarissa Mcintire

Theses and Dissertations

Studies of American Indian protest rhetoric often define American Indian opposition either by its resistance or its conformity to non-Native institutional discursive norms, suggesting that only one of the two can be considered authentic to American Indian cultures and identities. Addressing this debate, this thesis examines an instance of Native opposition which successfully blends the two approaches: Russell Means' 1989 statement to the United States Senate. Means employs the mode of story to effectively shift discursive authority from the Senate committee members to pan-Indigenous peoples. I call this shift rhetorical occupation, or the appropriation of rhetorical space. Through rhetorical occupation, …

Hybrid Suspension Tissue Engineering Of A 3d Alveolar Model For Lung And Vascular Disease Modeling, Jonard Corpuz Valdoz

Theses and Dissertations

Tissue engineering is a dichotomy of scaffold-based and scaffold-free cultures. Scaffold-based cultures form highly organotypic structures but with low uniformity and throughput. Conversely, scaffold-free cultures create consistently sized and shaped cell aggregates with limited spheroid-like structure and function, thus restricting their use for accurate disease modeling. We hypothesized that combining aspects of each culturing format, we would produce highly organotypic structures of consistent size and shape for use in pulmonary modeling. First, to improve on culture consistency and output, we created a novel easily scalable, minimalistic design for a micropatterned hydrogel dish that increases reliability and efficiency in 3D cell …

Lab Lore, Haley Moon

Final Projects

Occupational folklore about a research lab on BYU campus.

Connections To The Past: Family Folklore In The Bullock/Christensen Family, Ashley Bullock

Final Projects

Stories and songs passed through the Bullock and Christensen family.

American Cryptids: A Field Guide, Melanie Kimball

Final Projects

A field guide about American cryptids, such as Bigfoot and the Chupacabra.

Cryptids And The Uncanny Valley, Megan Petty, Caroline Dale

Final Projects

About cryptids and their relationship to the uncanny valley.

Cattle Branding: Epitomizing Ranch Culture, Cassidy Crosby

Final Projects

Customs surrounding cattle branding on the Crosby Family Ranch in Northern Wyoming. This paper highlights how branding reflects family ethics and how those ethics are transmitted to the next generation of ranchers.

Ravenswood High, Patrick Smith-Labombard

Final Projects

A short story inspired by the tale Campers "On the Trail" by Gayle Vernon Gates.

Wish-Making As Folklore, Kate Ashman

Final Projects

About the folklore surrounding wishes.

The Four Species Of The Dating Catfish, Sage Sutton

Final Projects

About variances of catfishing in dating culture.

Making The Case For Paid Parental Leave In The United States, Jane Johnson, Sarah Calvert

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Despite being one of the most influential countries in the world, the United States is still one of only three developed countries that does not mandate paid parental leave on a federal level. Although some federal legislation does offer unpaid leave, these laws are insufficient to meet the needs of working parents. This paper examines existing parental leave laws to highlight the duration of leave and methods of funding used by some U.S. states and other countries worldwide. We also review multiple studies that demonstrate benefits of paid parental leave for both parents and children. This paper ends with a …

Full Issue

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

The Walls That Define Us, Kaitlyn C. Nielson

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” tells the story of Bartleby, a man living in the lower-class of nineteenth century New York City, who secures a job copying legal documents. Unlike the other employees’ eagerness to work, Bartleby remains behind his “green screen” that demarcates his office space and repeatedly responds “I would prefer not to” when asked to complete a task.

Most readers and critics alike interpret Bartleby’s behavior as a mode of passive resistance against his boss and the larger institutions of Wall Street and capitalism. However, through close reading, I instead …

Angel Babies Ascending To Heaven A Family Saga Of Death Across Cultures, Heidi Riboldi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is a microhistory focused on infant death and burial practices in Spain and Argentina at the turn of the twentieth century. The study uses primary sources from biographical journal pages, vital records, and notarial documents. The biographical journal pages are eleven loose pages written by Pablo Montaña that provide information about his family's births, marriages, and deaths, for four generations. Vital records for birth, marriage, and death events were found in the local parish and municipal archives in Cañizo, Spain, and the Catholic Diocese Archive in Zamora, Spain, Archivo Histórico Diocesano de Zamora. Notarial records like wills …

Kindness In The Bardo: Empathy As A Catalyst For Healing In Victims Of Dissociation, Julia Dorothea Chopelas

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, a host of undead characters find themselves in a spiritual limbo based on the bardo. Although they won’t admit it to themselves, Roger Bevins III and Hans Vollman are most certainly dead. Despite their supernatural makeup as ghosts, Bevins and Vollman bear strong psychological resonance with the living: they are human, heartbroken, and lost. For the ghosts of Oak Hills Cemetery, the inefficient coping mechanism of dissociation perpetuates their afterlife imprisonment in the bardo. Bevins and Vollman suffer from a variety of dissociative symptoms, their minds’ psychological defense against the trauma that has …

"A Crash Of Worlds": How Red Dead Redemption Ii Creates A World Where Players Experience Empathy Through Character Performance, Heather Rose Moser

Theses and Dissertations

Players of an open-world video game are more than merely audience members watching a narrative play out--they actively participate and perform in the world. Drawing from scholars like Edmund Husserl, Konstantin Stanislavski, Ossy Wulansari, and PJ Manney, this paper explores principles of performance, phenomenology, and empathy to examine how open-world role-playing games, specifically Red Dead Redemption II, help players experience empathy. Constructing this experience through character attachment, length of play, and identification in a safe experimental space, these games become a bridge leading to greater empathy for people who are different from the player. The immersive nature of these games …