Rating: 
Summary: God, I just LOVED this book!
Review: I would have given you six stars if I could. I ate this book up with relish...I wanted to give a few examples of why I adored this book, but there were literally too many. Tried to find a few exceptionally funny passages, but there too, too many. Wonderful job, Haven! Can't wait to read more from you!
Rating:
Summary: Back Home in Indiana - Wonderful
Review: A wonderful book capturing a very special time. I bought this without benefit of any review or recommendation. How pleased I was with the result. It's a great read which captures the time, the place, the sights, the smells and the joy of small-town Indiana. Funny is most parts, sad in some, but a beautifully portrayed slice of Americana. This is an author to watch!
Rating:
Summary: Wow, great book!
Review: I am a little biased when it comes to Haven Kimmel. I have personally known Haven for over twenty years. I loved her book. I think anyone wanting a good laugh, read this book. She is wonderful in person and her book was just as good. Wonderful reading!
Rating:
Summary: a delight
Review: Written in the style of a child watching herself grow up, Kimmel captures the intricacies of her childhood in a way I wish I could. Her recollection of her handmade outfits, house smells, and the endless stream of neighbors are an absolute delight. What I most loved about this book was her keen observational skills, sharing with us as she discovers why grown ups aren't really all that perfect but that doesn't mean we can't love and rever them anyway. The stories of her cruising the streets of Moreland on her trusty bike, as if she is checking off on her list the abnormalities she has learned to embrace. She's like that neighborhood kid that was always there. In some ways, I'm jealous. I wish I could capture my own childhood with the vivid recall she is able to employ. There are parts that had me in tears, and parts (the coon-dog chapter) howling with laughter. I found myself relating the coon-dog story to friends, as if Kimmel were a friend of mine, and I was recalling the story she told me personally.
Rating:
Summary: Best childhood memoir in years
Review: Not since Sylvia Fraser has anyone described a small girl's growing up so well. Very funny (baby's first words at age of 3 were "I'll make a deal with you"), very deep, no gratuitous literary bad behavior. Don't stay away just because it happened in Indiana; she's never boring.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny and Warm Memoir (bad title though)
Review: Just finished reading this warm and funny book; wish the title was different! I had bypassed it at my library because I thought perhaps it was one of those cliche movie-of-the-week books about someone overcoming some type of disability yet "smiling through" it all. Not at all - reminded me of "Five Finger Discount" and "Angela's Ashes" (although not as bleak as that one!) Lots of laugh-out-loud incidents (the time trying to catch the pig, the report card...)
Rating: 
Summary: Amusing!
Review: The title character in "A Girl named Zippy" is an amusing child somewhere between the ages of three and ten. In this book, Haven Kimmel (Zippy) recalls the little things that make up her childhood in a series of short chapters. These chapters are not arranged in chronological order; rather, they are arranged the way an adult's mind thinks as it calls to mind memories from childhood. They are disjointed and out of order, but they evoke a clear, sharp reminder of childhood and past times. Zippy is truly a brat, as you will find out when you read this book and hear some of the things that she says and read of some of the things she does. However, she is extremely funny and you will probably laugh out loud at many of her antics! Haven uses exaggeration, sarcasm, and dry wit to her advantage in this book. She is not the best writer in the world, but it works! As amusing as this book was, though, I found myself feeling a little sorry for Zippy and her family in some ways. Her mother is an overweight, depresssed woman who never leaves the couch (where she escapes from life through the world of books) except to go to church. Her father is an apparent alcoholic who never seems to have a job, gambles often, and leaves guns laying about the house. She does not seem to have any grandparents or other relatives that they are on speaking terms with.And her brother and sister seem remote and caught up in their own lives. There is sort of a gentle sadness that surrounds the people in her family that just makes you want to cry. Zippy and her siblings seem to live in poverty (as do most of her townmates) and their house always seems to be filthy. Zippy does not even have her own bed--she sleeps in a sleeping bag on the living room floor! Yet, through it all, Zippy does not seem to notice any of that; instead, she is quite happy as she zips and runs and pummels her way through life. This book is equal parts happy and sad, just like real life. One of my favorite things about the book was the photographs that preface each chapter. I love to look at other people's photographs, and so this was an added little benefit that made the people of this story come to life in a way that mere words can not always do.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet and funny
Review: It's a gifted writer who can credibly recall the voice of a child, and Ms. Kimmel is a gifted writer. Frank McCourt was able to do this exceptionally well in ANGELA'S ASHES (and the film makers weren't able to do it at all). The world does look different when viewed through the eyes of a child, indeed because that child has no other frame of reference. And Zippy's observations made this book funny and touching. I loved the way she viewed her older sister, especially in the beauty contest chapter. I also thought wistfully of days gone by, and how much more freedom Zippy (and I) had in youth. Today, in this much more violent world, I wonder if children can simply wander safely through even the smallest towns, looking for adventure the way Zippy did. And that cover photo! How can you look at that face without smiling?
Rating: 
Summary: Who's the writer in the family?
Review: I started A Girl Named Zippy prejudiced in its favor, based on reviews I'd read, and at first I wasn't disappointed. In fact, my initial reaction was so favorable that it took me a while to admit to myself how disenchanted I later became. After a while, the narrator stops seeming charmily witty and comes across, instead, as nasty. "I thought she just got disgusting," my 19-year-old daughter said forthrightly. (More discerning than I, she simply stopped reading a third of the way through.) What appears to be a complete lack of any spiritual dimension is, I think, what does Kimmel in; it's one thing to reject the specific religious tradition of one's family, but a childish brat with no larger frame of reference just isn't appealing. It occured to me later that in the first pages of her book, Kimmel relies heavily on quoting from entries made in her baby book by her mother; maybe the mother is the one whose memoir I'd really like to read.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining and funny!
Review: Normally, I read mysteries...it takes alot to get from mysteries to memoirs...I was first hooked by th title, then taken in totally by the excerps...I'm ordering it!
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