When the Roll is Called a Pyonder

"With grace, humor, and sensitivity, Diana R. Zimmerman renders a traditional Mennonite farm family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as seen through a child’s eyes and spoken in the hypnotic rhythms of a young girl’s voice. The spirited speaker develops a rich sense of herself and her community as she grows up in a conservative religious context where “help means spank,” and female children are reared for lives of obedience, modesty, and piety. This is a remarkably immediate work of memory and imagination—authentic, fair-minded, and unsentimental— suitable for readers of all ages."

—Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author of Sleeping Preacher and

The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life


"Diana R. Zimmerman has written a great American memoir. I was reminded of Huck Finn and Harriet the Spy and Jo March as I chuckled and gasped and laughed out loud through this book. You will love this little Mennonite girl, and she will lead you back to your own inner child. You will also start seeing the world through her eyes. You won't want this story to end."

—Shirley Hershey Showalter,

author of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World