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

A Girl Named Zippy is the sweet and funny memoir of Haven Kimmel, born in Mooreland, Indiana, (population 300) in 1965. Her memories are told with a lighthearted and self-deprecating tone, and the many quirky characters come to life in her telling. Zippy ends on Christmas Eve, which I did not know when I began, of course, but which seems entirely fitting.

I was reminded more than once not so much of my own Midwestern birthplace, but that of my grandmother and great-grandparents, a place which still looms large in my memories. I imagine that such towns did not change much between, say 1965 and 1985, which is why reading this often felt like slipping into something familiar and well-worn. And, although the better part of several decades passed between the two memoirs, I was reminded again and again of Edmund Love's wonderful The Situation in Flushing, which still ranks as my favorite memoir. (It is also worth noting that Kimmel's life and early experiences could not be farther from the life and times of Lady Pamela Hicks, whose Daughter of Empire is the last memoir I read.)

I picked this up at the library after seeing it on BookBub - still one of my favorite web finds in 2014 - and read it in a matter of hours. Time well spent - and easily recommended for anyone who loves memoirs or small town America.

Merry Christmas!