A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana (Today Show Book Club #3)

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and True
Review: I judged a book by its cover - and was not disappointed. The cover shot was so striking that I snatched it up, flipped through the first chapter, quickly got addicted and had to finish it that night. I sat on the couch all evening with my loved one and to his raised eyebrows, just laughed and laughed. Haven Kimmel has this fantastic ability to draw you into a Mooreland of the 1960's-70's, to show you her life as a gawky, searching herione like no other. And though it's very specific,the concepts, her memories, actions, etc... are so universal - dissecting the science of best friends, over-compassion for animals, all-consuming belief and fear. Read it! So Ms. Kimmel can create a sequel, and I can stop wondering how dearest Zippy gets through jr. high! ;)

Rating:
Summary: small town enjoyment
Review: if you've ever lived in a small town, you will know this hits close to your heart. not until you become an adult do you yearn for simple things in life again. what a gem!

Rating:
Summary: Fresh, funny and uplifting
Review: Haven Kimmel's childhood was not punctuated by alcoholism or abuse. No one died young, no one tortured the young girl, and she wasn't raised in some exotic location. On the contrary, Haven's childhood was probably like a lot of people's...without major drama but full of interesting people and little stories that make for a wholesome read. I found this book very easy to get into and finish, and exceptionally refreshing compared to the majority of memoirs these days that focus on the negative. I guarantee readers of Zippy will come away with a deep appreciation for Haven's parents for raising her in a happy, and healthy environment that produced a great writer to boot.

Rating:
Summary: Read Now! "A Girl Named Zippy"
Review: "A Girl Named Zippy," was a hilarious memoir of a small town girl who
explores and embraces the unordinary circumstances that help her discover her true self.
She is the youngest of three children in the Jarvis family of Mooreland, Indiana. By the time she was three years old, she had a reputation of being headstrong, rebellious and unpredictable. Although Zippy's intentions are good, she is misunderstood and often labeled as the "trouble-maker." Each adventure Zippy takes, the more she uncovers the untold details of her neighbors and realizes their influence on her, makes her childhood worthwhile to experience, even if they sometimes terrify her.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because each chapter's topics were more unpredictable than the next. I thought the author was very open in details from her childhood that ranged from embarrassing and outrageous to genuine and heartfelt. She was very sarcastic in tone, but that made it all the more dramatic and memorable. I would definitely recommend this book to my peers who want to compare city life to the country life.


Rating:
Summary: A lot of fun to read!
Review: A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY by Haven Kimmel
January 8, 2005

One of my favorite books read in 2004 was this one, A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY by Haven Kimmel. I'm not one to read memoirs, but the front cover caught my eye. The photo of this nearly bald headed little girl in a ruffled blue dress and huge eyes and big ears was something that I couldn't walk away from. And with enough recommendations from other readers, I finally picked up the book at the end of 2004.

Zippy was the nickname of Haven Kimmel, because of the way she used to zip around the room. The book is told from her point of view, but through her eyes as a young precocious girl. We see things as they happened years ago, starting from how she thinks (in her humorous way) her mother and the rest of her family saw her. One of the funniest sections of this memoir was Zippy recalling her mother's journal and writing about Zippy, and the fact that she hadn't spoken a word until the age of three. When Zippy finally spoke her first words and they were "I'll make a deal with you", spoken to her father, her mother's journal entry was "Now that we know she can talk, all I can say is `dear God. Please give that child some hair. Amen'". There were lines like this and many more that had me laughing out loud as I read.

A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY is told in little vignettes, and goes back and forth in time. The reader is reliving Kimmel's childhood through flashes of memory, one leading into another, and not necessarily in chronological order. Although this style doesn't always work, I felt it was perfect for this book. The short chapters made this book a fast read. Each succeeding chapter added a little bit more to the memories of Kimmel's childhood, giving the reader an idea of what her life must have been like in the late 60's and early 70's growing up in that small town of Mooreland, Indiana. It is a town in which (her sister claims) no one sane would have any interest in hearing about, but obviously Melinda was wrong. Kimmel did write that book about their small town lives in Mooreland, and it was interesting enough to get published. I would love to read a sequel, and see what other escapades our dear little Zippy got herself into.

Rating:
Summary: Heartwarming and wonderful
Review: I first heard about this book when listening to a review on NPR, and immediately picked it up from the library. I was finishing up law school exams, and wanted to save it as a treat for when they were over. But I made the mistake of picking up the book that same day and leafing through it - and was immediately hooked. My studying was put on hold until I finished reading it. And even then, I rushed to order a copy so that I could have my own.

This book has everything - wonderful characterizations of both people and animals, rich and hilarious imagery, and a tone of nostalgia throughout that leaves you with a wonderful sigh at the end. When I finished this book, I wanted to know Zippy's family and the residents of the town (except maybe Edythe), I wanted to live in Mooreland and ride my bike with streamers flying out of the handles, and most important, I wanted to be best friends with Zippy.



Rating:
Summary: Very funny - offbeat and full of heart
Review: I loved this book. It is told from a child's perspective like Angela's Ashes without all the suffering. She really gets to the heart of what it is like to be a kid and to come from a small midwestern town. I laughed out loud all through the book and it really was heartwarming in a non-saccharine way. As some readers pointed out some of the descriptions of animals being killed was hard to take but that is reality in a farm community.

I would definately recommend reading this book...wonderful.

Rating:
Summary: Very good, but be forewarned...
Review: This was a very good book, funny, poignant, and worth the time. Zippy was quite the character; and the author paints her thought processes as a young tomboy with accuracy and whimsy. But I wish I had been forewarned: there are a lot of small dead animals involved in her growing up in rural Indiana. Most of those stories are in the first part of the book. I actually got to the point where I said if there is one more sad/abused animal story, I'm going to stop reading. Luckily, I didn't have to stop and ended up enjoying the book a great deal. I would recommend it with reservations.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing of a sweet story
Review: My prevailing thought after finishing this book was that I wish I had Haven Kimmel as a close friend. Who would think that a memoir of an unknown person would become so widely read? The two first impressions one gets when considering this book are her quirky baby picture and the story of her first words. Within five pages, she had developed her character so well that I truly cared about how this terrific young lady got along growing up.

I also see an important lesson in it for anyone who feels different than the rest and is uncorfortable because of it - embrace those differences and don't try to change.

My only complaint is that at times towards the end she has progressed so far as a person that she comes off a little bit snobby in her judgement of poetry and perhaps herself.

Don't let that dissuade you from reading this gem. Ms. Kimmel has a soft sensitive sense of humor that resounds throughout. I'm not sure whether or not she has had a baby of her own yet, but someday I hope she does so that she can entertain us all with another story from the heart.

Rating:
Summary: Growing up Small, Laughing out Loud...and Wondering
Review: This is one of the funniest, yuckiest books I've ever read. On the surface, it is pure childish comic delight, but the hinted-at menace swirling beneath the surface adds a certain grim adult thoughtfulness to Kimmel's weeks, days, months and years that comprised her coming of age in the oughta-be-but-isn't squeaky clean Bible Belt. At times, I was smiling while my skin was crawling. Those of us who grew up in cities will never look at small towns in the same way again.