Charlie Is a Chicken — Jane Denitz Smith

A bad joke?

Charlie Siegel has a pretty normal life. Until the notes start. Charlie is a chicken. Charlie smells. At first he thinks they are a joke. After all, why would anybody be mean to him? But the notes keep coming and Charlie begins to think that they might be true. He wants to ask his best friend, Maddie, about it. But lately she's been more interested in talking to the popular girls than in hanging around him. Suddenly Charlie's world seems to be spinning out of control. Why is this happening to him? And will his life ever be normal again?

Charlie Siegal is leading a pretty normal fifth-grade life until the day the mysterious notes start to appear. The notes are stupid, mean, and mostly untrue, but Charlie cant help being hurt by them. Somebody is going to a lot of trouble to make his life miserable. And its working. Nothing is the same for Charlie, not even Maddie, his best friend for as long as he can remember. Suddenly Maddie has become as unrecognizable as the handwriting on the notes hes been getting. Shes spending more and more of her time with horrible Jessica McGuire, a girl they used to ignore. And shes staying away from Charlie every chance she gets. Does Maddie have something to hide?In her second novel for young readers, Jane Denitz Smith has created a heartfelt story about what it means to test the limits of friendshipand what it takes to make everything right again.