A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana (2001)

"It's a cliche to say that a good memoir reads like a well-crafted work of fiction, but Kimmel's smooth, impeccably humorous prose evokes her childhood as vividly as any novel. Born in 1965, she grew up in Mooreland Indiana, a place that by some mysterious and powerful mathematical prinicple retains a population of 300, a place where there's no point learning the street names because it's just as easy to say, "We live at the four-way stop sign."

Hers is less a formal autobiography than a collection of vignettes comprising the things a small child would remember; sick birds, a new bike, reading comics at the drugstore, the mean old lady down the street. The truths of childhood are rendered in lush yet simple prose; here's Zippy describing a friend who hates wearing girls' clothes: "Julie in a dress was like the rest of us in quicksand." Over and over we encounter pearls of third-grade wisdom revealed in a child's assured voice. "There are a finite number of times one can safely climb the same tree in a single day". ( )

Delightful memoir. I listened to the second of her books first, so I had a passing familiarity with all the characters. Her voice rings true, and her memories are colored with just the right amount of wry distance. Recommended. ( )

I read this awhile ago so I'm a bit fuzzy but I recall a hilarious line about a cat without a butt hole or something along those lines. I adore this book and wanted to name a daughter "Haven" for several years after reading it. ( )

So many books that seem suitable for discussion are heavy and drepressing; A Girl Named Zippy is a welcome change. Kimmel provides a fascinating glimpse into the Mooreland, Indiana (perennial population of 300) of her childhood through a child's remembered perspective. What makes this different from many memoirs is that Kimmel had a relatively happy childhood. Despite the lack of traumatic events in Kimmel's life, there are still plenty of points to discuss in the circumstances surrounding her youth. Laugh out loud funny stories that just beg to be read aloud make up the meat of the book, but Mooreland is not depicted as a paradise with no faults. I want to know what happened to the people we met here and am looking forward to reading more of Kimmel's books in the future.

July 2008 book club selection. ( )

I WANTED to like this book....I TRIED too like this book....but I DIDN'T like this book. This is a memoir of a girl who grew up in the early 70's in small town Indiana. If I've learned one thing in the past year, it is that I am NOT a fan of memoirs! Most read like a series of anecdotes that may be fine in small doses as short stories, but instead result in a book with no real plot that is far more interesting to the author as she writes the book than it is to the reader. This book reminded me very much of 'Sh*t My Dad Says' without the course language.

Imagine that you make a new acquaintance who seems interesting, so you invite her to lunch so you can get to know each other better. You order, then ask about where she is from. She tells you not only where she was born, but the circumstances of her birth. She tells you about the creepy lady across the street. She tells you about the mean boy next door. All through lunch SHE talks and she never-shuts-up!

Or imagine instead, she invites you for dinner. As dinner is cooking she pops in a DVD of old home videos. Many hours later, as your eyes glaze over, you are only hoping for it to end so you can escape.

That is pretty much how it feels to read this book! I realize that some people enjoy reading memoirs, which is why they sell very well. I am just not one of them! But if you are a memoir fan this is possibly a book you will enjoy. I read it as a book club selection, and most enjoyed the book. I really did TRY to like this book! ( )