A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana (Today Show Book Club #3) | 
 enlarge | Author: Haven Kimmel
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  195 reviews
Sales Rank: 10571
Media: Paperback
Edition: Today Show Book Club
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 282
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0767915054
Dewey Decimal Number: 977.264
EAN: 9780767915052
ASIN: 0767915054
Publication Date: September 2002
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Product Description
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy.
Download Description
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period -- people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards. Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 190 more reviews...
 Animal Lovers Beware June 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the first 75 pages of this warm and fuzzy book, the following happens (and not much else): a piglet dies, a dog dies of worms, a hen and rooster are dragged off by dogs, the dogs get shot, a cat is stolen and starved in a basement, oh, and a rabbit has its ears stapled to a fence and its head chopped off. One would expect plenty of death on a farm but there's no farm in this story. Just a backyard.
 Really well written June 18, 2008
Well written memoir. I think most people who read this book get the fact that though she was loved by her parents, her childhood was far less than perfect. I for one did not read this book and think "wow, what a refreshing a wonderful memoir of a lovely and decent childhood". It was cleverly written from a child's perspective so that we adult readers would read enough into what she was writing to understand that though her childhood was, in many ways, quite dysfunctional and disturbing at times, the author herself saw life from a different perspective. This could have easily been written as a 'woe is me' kind of memoir but it would have been far less interesting and real. I appreciate her humor and positive light. There were many times when I related entirely to what she was writing (I too grew up in a dysfunctional family in a very small town in Indiana) and many times I laughed right out loud. I really enjoyed this book.
Well Written, Yet Troubling April 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I concur with much of the praise that precedes me: "Zippy" is a lyrically written, thoughtful, engaging memoir that I read with great pleasure.
And yet, in the end, it was the very pleasure of my reading experience that troubled me. A reviewer below notes, "It is refreshing every once in a while to read a story that doesn't have murder, major drama, or psychological problems." Yet the book is chock full of every one of those things, and then some: those themes are just so sugar-coated, the reader is hypnotized into overlooking them.
A short list of thematic elements touched on by the book includes: depression, alcoholism, birth defects, child-neglect, child sexual abuse, murder, teenage pregnancy, animal cruelty (in abundance), mental illness, religious fanatacism, grinding poverty, gambling addiction, and the Mi Lai Massacre, for goodness' sake!
And yet these themes are all presented in a filmy, dreamlike way that removes their sting and horror. One could argue that that is the theme of the book: the triumph of one child's powerful sense of self over adversity.
However, as I turned the final page, I began to feel that I had been tricked into approving, even admiring, the "good old days" that never were. I believe the author could have and should have demanded more of the reader to connect the dots between events as seen from the child's point of view and the more stark light of adult reality. This book makes it all too easy for the reader to condone a world in which very serious issues are treated as light afternoon reading on the front porch swing.
 Sweet, thoughtful memoir April 12, 2008
This is the story of Zippy, an imaginative, precocious girl who grew up in the small town of Mooreland, Indiana during the 1960's and 1970's. She tells stories about her family members, childhood friends, eccentric neighbors, and various pets. Through it all, Zippy has a resilience of spirit and a positive attitude that shine through, even in situations that otherwise may not be ideal.
This book is unusual in that it is written with a child's voice, but is interesting and humorous to adults. Haven Kimmel is really able to capture the feeling of being a child, and how even the most minor of events can have major importance. It was refreshing to read a memoir about a happy childhood, and I found myself reciting several sweet and funny passages out loud to various family members. I loved how Zippy shared the stories of the first memory she ever had, the first time she thought about family genes, and the first time she thought about the passage of time. The book is written in very simple prose, but has depth to it as well.
I highly, highly recommend this book. It was an absolute joy, and I loved every minute of it. Do not miss this one!!!!
I love Zippy! March 4, 2008
This was a light hearted and hilariously funny book. It is refreshing every once in a while to read a story that doesn't have murder, major drama, or psychological problems. Zippy's story is from a small town where something you and I take for granted every day is described in a way to make you laugh and appreciate the small things in life. I bought the next Zippy book afterwards and loved it just as much.
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