The Hunky-Dory Dairy

by Anne Lindbergh, Julie Brinckloe

When eleven-year-old Zannah McFee goes out to buy milk and a newspaper, she stumbles upon a dairy and its inhabitants who have been magically zapped from the 1800s into the 1980s. Zannah introduces them to modern conveniences and makes plans to move into the haunted dairy.

Genres: Childrens, Fantasy, Middle Grade, Fiction, Young Adult

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Anne Spencer Lindbergh, daughter of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh; sister of Reeve Lindbergh.

Also published under the name Anne Lindbergh Feydy.

New York Times obituary

Reviews

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

08/16/24-stuck in bed with knee pain, pulled out my comfort book.

03/27/12-I had strep this week, so I went for my go-to feel good book. :)
When I was a kid, I would check this book out at the library like every other visit. I didn't get my own copy until a few years ago when I found a hardbound, library copy on Amazon and knew I had to have it. I'm not sure what it is about this book that I love so much...it's a simple quick read with a plot that's been done before and probably better. But, I don't know...I just adore it.read the full review here!

Reread May 2009-My favoritest book in the whole wide world. :)

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this cover and I immediately remembered how I used to (often) mistake the title of this book as "The Hunky-Dory Diary." I really expected this book to be about a diary, not a dairy.

[Anna]

I loved this book when I was younger.

[Books, Brews & Booze · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books from childhood. I look for it everywhere. And I’ll be gosh-darned if I didn’t find it at the Booth Library sale, on the fifth day of the sale… which also happens to be the free books day. Can you believe it?! I just stared in disbelief for what felt like a long time!

[Silver Faerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this review was one of those crappy ones ... Still, this book is a good one, one of those which really isn't that great but you loved as a ten year old. So then you pass it on to your ten year old. And so on until the book falls apart. Because that has happened.

It was really amazing that Zannah goes into another century time period. And she meets another girl. Her mother gets married to the girl she meets father. That comes way later on in the story.

[Rena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eleven-year-old Zannah McFee the girl jumps in the milkman's wagon one day and goes back in time to the a dairy trapped in the 1800's where the people there never age. She tries to bring them up to speed with technology and ideas of her times (1980's).

Yet another childhood favorite - I read everything Anne Lindbergh wrote.

[xenu01 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though there are certain logistical problems which bother my adult self a lot more than my 10 year old self, I found this book to be just as charming and wonderful as I remembered it being. And even though it's a middle readers book, it absorbed me enough to make me miss my stop! Recommended for all ages.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Anne Lindbergh's writing.

[Alysia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book as a kid. I think it may have started my love for time travel stories. I need to pull it out for my kids to read now.

[Nd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second of three or four young adult books, rescued from a recycling barrel, that was an excellent YA read. A couple of good summertime YAs are fun even for a septuagenarian. I'm so glad I saved them and can pass them on to others! In this one, Zannah McFee went out very early one morning, in the pouring rain, to grab some milk and a newspaper for her mother who had expressed (when asked, on her birthday, half asleep) what was her heart's desire. When the disappointed Zannah realized that she had arrived before the store had even opened, she noticed a horse-drawn milk wagon with no driver. Hoping to buy milk, she climbed inside to find the owner, but the wagon began to travel into the woods of a local park with Zannah inside. Her eventual arrival was at the home of a family from another century who lived and ran their Hunky-Dory Dairy by hundred-year-ago- rules. Her new friends became Pete, the milkman who was able to go back and forth between centuries, and Utopia Graybeal, a new friend her own age at the Hunky-Dory dairy whose father and brother were pretty hostile and demanding. Still, Zannah's goal became to have her mother and Utopia's father fall in love and marry so that she and her mother Patty could go there to live.

[Sarah Coller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. This book was awful. Next in my stack of books from a 1980s grade school, I didn't actually read this one when I was a kid. In fact, I'm not sure I even remember it. BUT...I went to a pretty conservative and not so wealthy grade school and this book has a lot of strong language so my librarian probably banned it or decided it wasn't worth spending the funds on in the first place.

Language isn't it's only downfall, though. The story was just super dumb---there's no other way to put it. Zillions of loopholes and the mother is more moronic than is humanly possible (though she suddenly becomes "with it" in the end...)

Speaking of the end...all the story lines that an interested person would be following are wrapped up all hunky-dory like in a vague, unsatisfying paragraph or two before the book's abrupt stop.

For a film version of this that's still kinda cheesy but definitely watchable, look for Split Infinity or, if you can find it, Stranger in Time. Both are early 90s films that feature a young girl traveling back to earlier times.

[Jodie Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a favorite when I was a kid and I was excited to find a copy on thriftbooks. The story holds up but it is definitely dated...there are a lot of 'fat' comments and talk of people's weight. And I definitely didnt remember how rude and bossy 11 yr old Zannah was to all the adults, especially her mother...she was also weirdly obsessed with getting her mom married. All that said, that actual story is still really cute and fun...Zannah stumbles onto two families who are living in 1881 and shenanigans ensue.

[Lia]

When I was growing up, every summer my family and I would spend some time at my great-uncle's summer house in Vermont. The house was unlived in for the most part, since my uncle lived in DC. But anyways, this was one of the books lying around the house, and I read it every summer -- it was part of the routine. Get up. Get Dressed. Go for a swim. Read the Hunky-Dory Dairy.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a childhood favorite of mine. Overall, it still holds up (although there are a few details that feel dated in a bad way, like fat jokes). I could see sharing this book with students, then asking them to find out what sort of new technologies they have today that would be just as strange to Zannah in 1986 as Zannah's world is to Utopia.

[Allison Larkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just randomly remembered a teeny tiny detail from this book, all these years after reading it, and looking up the cover made me smile. I know I read this book several times as a kid and loved it dearly.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book in the library today. I remember really liking it when I read it as a kid!

[Alysha Filer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not for the life of me remember the title, but I have often thought of this book over the past 20 years. My eldest is now 7 and LOVE to read, so I'm excited to find a copy for her :D

[Crystylyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book as a kid. I've been looking for it for years! Thanks Google lol

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars