“The world recognizes most of the people I write about,” says award-winning Canadian author Connie Brummel Crook, “but they never bother to mention that the person was a Christian.”

Crook is a Christian who has carved out a successful niche writing historical novels about Canadians of faith who made a difference.

“I consider writing as my mission,” Crook says. “With my books, some Christian content goes into our public schools where, in many cases, not even Christmas carols are allowed.

“My main purpose is to bring to life our great Canadian Christian heritage. Nellie McClung is known by the secular world as a great suffragette leader and a famous author, but few realize she was a Christian. Laura Secord is recognized today as a name for candy. Few know she was a brave heroine, and even fewer that she was a Christian.”

Crook also hopes that young people who read her books will follow her characters’ examples and be open to Christianity.

Value of fiction
She knows the value of good fiction. An only child until age 10, growing up on an isolated farm in rural Ontario, “the characters in books were my friends and rounded out my life and character considerably.” She especially loved Heidi, whose life had similarities to her own.

At 17, Crook went to Queen’s University on a full scholarship. After a year at Wheaton College in Chicago and another at the U of T’s Ontario College of Education, she became a high school English and Latin teacher in Sault Ste Marie.

During that time, she met Reg Brown. They kept in touch and eventually married.Because Reg was pastoring a new church in Owen Sound, Connie continued to teach.

When their first daughter was born, Crook stopped teaching; but less than two years later, before the birth of their second daughter, Reg was diagnosed with incurable leukemia. After his death, Crook returned to work.

On a visit to Manitoba, she met Albert Crook, Reg’s cousin. “Albert was introduced to me by my first mother-in-law as her favourite nephew when I took my children west to visit their grandparents.” A year later, Albert and Connie married and moved to Peterborough, where she continued teaching.

As a busy mother, wife and teacher, Crook had little time for creative writing. However, she has no regrets. “I thoroughly enjoyed my years as a teacher.”

Second career
But in 1988, with her family grown, Crook took early retirement and began her second career. She chose to write about Canadian history because “there was so little about our Canadian heritage” for students to read. She chose to write novels because she had “more freedom to bring the characters to life so that the readers live through their experiences.”

Reviewers have said her novels are more accurate than some non-fiction books. “Nellie’s Victory, the third in my Nellie McClung trilogy,” says Crook, “is really a dramatized biography. Almost everything that everyone says is, in fact, what they actually did say.”

In the fall of 1989, Crook met Don Bastian, then managing editor of Stoddart Publishing, at the God Uses Ink conference in Toronto. In 1991, after several revisions, her first novel, Flight, was published by Stoddart.

Windflower Press published Laura’s Choice in 1993. Between 1994 and 2001, Stoddart published seven more books. Maple Moon was also translated into French.

Many of her books have won awards. Her most recent, The Hungry Year, won The Word Guild’s 2002 novel award. It was also shortlisted for both Canada’s IODE award and the 2002 Silver Birch Award (given by children in Grades 4-6).It was one of four Regional Silver Birch winners.

The Perilous Year (a sequel to The Hungry Year) will be released this spring by Fitzhenry and Whiteside.

Adult friendly
Children and teens love her books and she regularly receives enthusiastic e-mail and letters, but Crook says her books are not just for kids. Laura’s Choice and Nellie’s Victory, in particular, are novels for adults written in a language that children, too, can appreciate.

Although her books are available from most secular stores, Crook would love to see her books in Christian bookstores and church libraries. “Our Canadian Christian heritage includes many famous people of whom we can be proud. Canadian history and Christianity are not two separate entities.”

We can also be proud of Canadian Christian authors like Connie Brummel Crook.

To learn more, visit www.conniebrummelcrook.com

Nancy Lindquist is a versatile writer, whose work includes four novels for teens. If you would like some Canadian authors’ bookmarks (or enough for your church) contact her at njlindquist@rogers.com or phone toll free: 1-877-842-8754.

Published in ChristianWeek February 18, 2003 Volume 16 Number 23