A Girl Named Connie – Book Review

Miss Connie was my 7th grade teacher. She was young, fun, energetic and pretty. She was everything I wanted to be when I grew up and I loved her dearly. When she decided to leave our school district at the end of the year to teach in Louisville I remember being devastated. We gave her a going-away party and I cried then and later at home. I couldn’t imagine my world without her in it.

Decades Later:

One of the joys of growing up in a small town is that everyone really does know your name. One of the sorrows of a small town is that they also know everything else about you and what they don’t know, sometimes they make up.

I understand now why Miss Connie had to leave, especially after reading this book.

Her story is heart wrenching and it brought home to me how one decision (In this case the decision was made by Connie’s parents not to tell her she was adopted) affected not just Connie’s life but everyone around her. Her friends knew, but their parents had told them not to talk about it. The whole town knew, everyone except Connie. How different her life might have been if her family had been honest with her.

This book is not a “feel sorry for me” book. In fact, it’s the opposite. It gave me a chance to know Connie the person and not just Connie my elementary school teacher and guess what? I love her even more now than I did in seventh grade.

An added plus to this book is that it was written by another one of my favorite teachers, Carol Perkins. Carol is a Renaissance woman. There’s no job or project she’s afraid to tackle and she and my other favorite high school teacher, Susan Chambers, have inspired more students from our little community than they will ever know.

Here’s the blurb on the back of the book: In 1946, being adopted was a social curse and a lifelong sentence. I was born that year, but not to prosperous business owners, Bill and Cloteel Wilson as I had thought. When I was six weeks old, they brought me to their rural Kentucky town, and I would not know I wasn’t theirs until I was in the sixth grade. A disgruntled classmate announced during recess that I as adopted. Even though shocked, I did not have the nerve to confront my parents, who could be quite volatile. For the next forty years, my life was one performance after another, and I played their daughter well. I struggled with thoughts of my birth mother, wondering why she had given me up, and if I had siblings elsewhere. Was she a tramp, a prostitute, or a victim of incest or rape? No doubt, I was illegitimate, and no one wanted to be the illegitimate child of anyone. My friends knew I was adopted, but when I ask them, they would tell me nothing. They did not want to cause trouble in my home. My dad was a kind business owner, but he was also a powerful man and one most people found intimidating. My mother was not much different. No one would ever think of asking them where they “got” me, including me. Many other secrets, rumors, and speculations about my birth emerged over the years, and in time, I would find out the truth. It would come in the form of a phone call late one night from an unlikely source.

I have never reviewed a book before written by someone I know and about someone I know. Normally you would think I might not be able to tell if it was a good book or not because of that. You would be wrong. I read enough books that I can safely say everyone and anyone will find this book interesting. It can be purchased on Amazon.com and I promise you, this book will intrigue you. You can thank me by leaving a comment on Amazon for Carol and Connie. I know they will appreciate it as much as I will. 

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