The Girl In The Back Of The Room - Paperback

by Pamela Kay Hawkins (Author)

Laurie Billings is a highly imaginative, precocious high school freshman living in the heartland of the United States in 1961. Five-feet-nine-inches tall and fully developed, she has the appearance of an adult-but inside she is still an immature child prone to tantrums, verbal outbursts, insecurity, and more than the usual teenage angst. But her world turns upside down when she ventures into her grandmother's attic and discovers her birth certificate...with a different man listed as her father. Has her whole life been a lie? What else has her mother kept from her? Searching for her place in this altered reality, Laurie learns painful truths about herself and the world, more specifically the two junior boys she sits between in the back of her homeroom class. She must sift through appearances, actions, and her own assumptions, as well as those of other people, in order to come to terms with the masks people wear, the truths behind them, and who she wants to be. For fans of Judy Blume, The Girl in the Back of the Room is a thought-provoking coming-of-age story that explores the same complex issues of purpose and self-worth still faced by young people today.

Author Biography

A college graduate with a BA in English literature and a double minor in history and journalism, Pamela Kay Hawkins earned an MA in journalism/mass communication with an emphasis in professional writing from the University of Oklahoma, where she also taught as a lecturer and teaching assistant while pursuing a PhD.

A published writer since 1982, Hawkins's work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, radio, video, public relations, and advertising. She also authored several books for Golden Books under the last name Broughton. Her literary novel, A Defect of Character, was published in spring of 2015.

A member of SCBWI since 1986, she currently lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Ed. When not writing, Hawkins enjoys interacting with her family, watercolor painting, music, and, of course, reading.