Charlie

Snowy Cove #1

by Dalya Moon

It's 1988, and Charlie Woodchuck is the most minor of niners. At thirteen, she’s the youngest girl at Snowy Cove High School, and so clueless, she wore leg warmers and acid-wash jeans on her first day. Big mistake! Almost as big a mistake as signing up for a boys-only shop class. Doy.

Just when she thinks the first week of high school can’t get any more weird, Charlie discovers she may be adopted. According to her Science textbook, her eyes should be blue, not brown.

Now the girl with the boy’s name will have to use her detective skills to uncover the mystery of her identity. She'll need the help of best friend Stacy, expert blackmailer, and new friend Ross, expert class clown.

Before the year ends, Charlie will face down the biggest bullies of the all-powerful members of Snowy Cove’s School Board. The Board doesn't like what Charlie's been up to, and they're all out of doughnuts.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 25, 2011

About the author

Hello, and thanks for your interest!

For news, please see my web site at www.dalyamoon.com.

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

You have to know that I never attended a High School for all intents and purposes. I'm German, thus I obviously attended the German equivalent of a High School which is in fact very different. That's one reason why I really looked forward to reading this, but I was also very interested in the fact that it is set in the 80s.

I don't read a lot of Middle Grade literature, but I still recognize a good one when I see it. It had me laughing and nearly crying, really, with Charlie and seriously kept thinking: Girl, why are you friends with people like that? But she's 13 years old (well, 14 years old later) and if I think back to that time, I probably did the same thing. It felt very real and I can really see this happening.

Surprisingly enough, people could survive without cell phones and laptops and what not! Seems hard to imagine for me, a severe technology addict. I got my first cell phone when I was 13 years old, the same age as Charlie is, and ... I couldn't do without anymore.

I loved the plot, the way everything tied together at the end, especially the surprise revealed in the last few pages! I kept thinking back and forth, and the solution never occured to me.
I really like it, you should go ahead and buy it - since it's been out a couple of weeks, I was just slow again and I'm kind of mad at myself for being late with such a great novel!

[Rida (Raindrop Reflections) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, how I ended up loving this book. I love it when I like books so much when I know right away that I'll come away with a positive reaction. And this was definitely one of them.

For one, this book is set in the eighties-ish time, when girls (and boys) weren’t allowed to take certain electives at school. Like, Charlie, the protagonist, wants to take Woodworking but she can’t, because that’s a course boys take. Similarly, if a guy wanted to take Cooking, he couldn’t. Of course, I was appalled.

Dalya Moon is a very skilled writer; in most of my past experiences with ebooks, there have been numerous grammatical and spelling errors, which I understand must come from the lack of a professional editor. But in Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner- well, I felt like I was reading a print copy of a book, even though I was reading on my computer.

The characters, again, were so wonderfully fleshed out, unique for an indie book (from my own experiences, of course, so no solid statement there) that I could practically see them.

Charlie was a delight to read about; she reminded me so much of myself, except, of course, for the part where her personality changed. And her friend Stacy- oh, I know people like that in my life, the kind of people you can never really guess at. The other characters- Kendra, Ross (I love that guy!), Sky (him, too, even if he’s annoying) and even Otter were as real as people I meet at school.

Charlie’s family- her mom and dad, were extremely real and had that wonderful quality fictional parents do when the author has taken time to observe people of all ages. I particularly loved how Charlie’s dad was shown, in this real, I’m-also-human way.

all in all, I very much enjoyed this book, especially the fact that it felt like I was reading a print copy of a book. I wonder WHY there aren’t print copies, by the way. If I’d read this when I was 13 or 14, I’d have gobbled it up, because Charlie is just so real.

Full review on my blog, Raindrop Reflections.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this was a time travel trip back to freshman year and 1988. I loved Charlie Woodchuck, the main character. She is a freshman making her mark in the school and life. Charlie learns some things in science class that have her questioning where she comes from and then also unintentionally becomes the poster child for social change. She is a fun character with humorous thoughts. One of my favorites was when she had PG daydreams about Sky the new boy who reminds her of Christian Slater.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a perfect story of freshman year. The year when everything is different, awkward, and finding your niche is of utmost importance. The time period added to my enjoyment. My favorite decade is the 80s. I loved the references in the book to acid wash jeans, sparkly eye shadow, and hair color mousse. Buying Tiger Beat magazines for the pin ups of the dreamy teen idols. The movie references in this book named many of the DVDs I actually own. The 80s slang was there also. The characters us words like “Doy” and phrases like “nacho cheese, nacho business”. Classic.
I recommend this wonderful trip back in time. Reading this book took me back to my freshman year of high school where I brushed off the memories and had a good laugh at the decade which was the 80s. Get the book and take another look at freshman year. These characters will have you remembering the 80s with fondness and who knows you may have known someone just like them. This book is totally awesome. Doy!
*I received a copy for an honest review

[Idris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells the story of a 13 years old girl called Charline Woodchuck, also known as Charlie, who begins in Snowy Cove High School, where she will have to deal with new students, guys, shop classes, professors, her best friend Stacy, and she will also deal with the perfect girl, Kendra, who outshines the rest of the girls.

But her history gets a little bit complicated when a science book, at the genetics section, confirms her something. Something she had never thought before, something that makes her doubt about her life and her parents. Is she adopted? Now Charlie will have to discover the truth. what else are her parents hiding? Are there any more secrets?

Charlie Woodchuck at first glance may seem like a normal girl, and she is. She's like any other girl of her age. Naive, stubborn, sometimes impulsive but also friendly, funny and sometimes with a lot of courage. I'm sure many readers will feel identified with her, and others will remember the days when they were her same age.

This is a short book, easy to read, sweet and funny, that talks about issues, problems and situations that may occur in the lives of children. Taking place in the 80s, also will show how simple life was some years ago without the technology that exists today. I'm sure many will enjoy reading it, and will laugh at the occurrences of Charlie and her friends.

This is a book kids will enjoy, and that parents and adults will like too.
Ages: +10

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so much fun to read, I loved every second of it! There was too many laugh out loud moments to count and when I wasn’t laughing I was smiling like an idiot. This was my first shot of a (upper) middle-grade novel and it was just so much fun and at most parts so cute.

OK, so back to the main review. One of the things I loved about this novel was that it was set in the ‘80s, because come on how many YA or middle-grade novels that have recently come out are set in the ‘80s? Well this is the first one I’ve seen and it was so refreshing to actually read something different for once.

All of the character were well rounded and grew throughout the novel. Charlie was an easy character to read and at some points I felt like hugging her and at others I felt like shaking her to see sense, but all in all I liked her.

I was kept guessing throughout the novel and Dalya threw couple of interesting curve balls in there as well, the suspense was killing me! But I was satisfied with the ending. This is one novel that I would love to see a sequel of.

Plot 4/5
Character 5/5
Cover 4/5
Ending 5/5

[Debra Barstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute little book. It was very easy to read and comical in parts. A true YA book.

[Erinn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charming but... I just can’t recommend because although this has wonderful character development, it lacks a plot and meanders.

[Reut · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being perfectly honest, there's not much to talk about, considering this book is less than 200 pages, but let's start with Charlie.

Charlie was one of the most likeable and realistic characters I've ever read about right from the start of the book. Her desire to take shop was a smart move on Dalya's part, and what I really liked about it was that Charlie wasn't really doing it to stand out, but because she didn't think it was fair that shop wasn't an option for girls. She took a risk by checking it off on her electives even though it was an all boys class and she wasn't sure what would happen. On the first day of shop, when her teacher "accidentally" cuts off his thumb to see the students' reactions to his prior safety talk, she starts to rethink this decision, making the choice more realistic.

Yet Charlie somehow becomes even less likeable as the book goes on. She struggles with figuring out her identity, but she goes about it in all the wrong ways, aggravating her parents to the point where her mother gets in a car accident because Charlie is bothering her in the car. She also has a major flaw of not standing up for herself, especially when people are saying awful things to her: her best friend Stacy, the typical best friend who walks all over our main character, and even at times one of her teachers, Mr. Woo, who insinuates her mother had an affair, and that's why her eyes are brown. Even though this is so ridiculously inappropriate, it goes virtually unnoticed by Charlie. Here's a sample of something Stacy said that made me wish Charlie would go all Fight Club on her a**:

 "I still have you beat," Stacy says. "But yeah, your life sounds lame, when you say it all like that." She takes a deep breath. "I feel okay now, at least I'm not you."

Charlie redeemed herself a bit in my eyes by calling a certain person out on their s***, and also giving me this gem:

Ross talks to me a lot, so I guess he thinks we're friends.

The ridiculousness of some of the plot twists and just things the characters did in general bothered me a lot. A character gets in a car crash where the car flips upside down and they aren't moving and yet just a few hours later is up and about, because apparently the hospital just needed to check them out.

A character moves out of the house because her mom talks about kissing too much. The mom never makes an effort to get her daughter back, which... I can't even.



Sometimes things just went completely unnoticed by characters until it was time for them to be brought up, and sometimes characters' behaviours were so radically different from how they had acted like, a chapter ago, that I again, was all:



Prom was last week? And you're mentioning it now? THANKS.

...the setting of this book was fun to read about. Like in the recent The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, Dalya inserts pop culture references to further establish the setting. Maybe it's just my affinity for 80's movies, but here these references weren't as obnoxious, although at times I felt like there were too many on a page. Some of my favourite dialogue mentioned stars of today that were big in the 80's--Charlie Sheen.

For my full review, visit http://reutreads.wordpress.com/2012/0...

[Sonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Woodchuck is a freshman in the 1980’s, a minor niner. She is trying hard to find herself in the world of knee warmers. Charlie signs herself up for an all-boys woodworking class and becomes the face of a new movement in the students and the teachers. On top of that, she learns in her new genetics class that her parents might not be her own.
Down a road of confusion, courage, rebellion and new knowledge, Charlie finally begins to understand the choices and events surrounding her life. She also takes on one heck of a fight; changing the schools point of view on the same gender classes.
Charlie is refreshing and intelligent. She has guts, quiet confidence, and courage to stand up to what she believes in.

My Review

This story is so cute. Charlie poses as a boy (on paper) to get into a woodworking class. But, the class is only for boys, and because of her name, she gets into the class. She finds that she is actually pretty good at woodworking and enjoys it, but doesn’t so much enjoy the teacher and the boys in the class. I was very proud of her though when she does show the boys, the teacher, and the school board what she is made of.
There is also another part of the book that is very interesting to me; a part that really fueled a lot of Charlie’s rebellion. She finds that her parents might not actually be her real parents. She goes down an entertaining road to find the truth. When she does, she starts to see every brown haired, brown eyed woman as her mother. She is seeing mother’s everywhere! It is cute the confusion that she has, but a little heartbreaking to know how she is feeling and the emotions she is going through. But it turns out to be okay in the end and her parents are still her parents.
Charlie also has a friend named Stacy that makes the story a little more interesting. In short, I didn’t like her for most of the story. But, I think she is pretty necessary to it. She is rude and doesn’t seem to care for Charlie’s feelings. Eventually, you learn about the troubles in her own life and the turmoil she is going through and you begin to understand her. I don’t think it is okay for a person to treat a friend like dirt, but it was a reminder to maybe “walk a mile in another's shoes”.
Along with Charlie finding out her mother is not biological, she finds that she may have a relative that has lived close by for years and she has never known. She finds that Kendra, the class know-it-all, is her cousin. I don’t believe she ever tells Kendra that they are cousins, but they do become very close friends.
By the end, Charlie is on a full out mission to show the school board that they should have more blended class. All the children should have a chance to learn the same subjects as one another. There is a performance at the end by the girls, a boy, and Charlie that shows the different genders can take on one another's roles and succeed well. Charlie also gets a chance to show off her woodworking skills.
Charlie Woodchuck is an adorable girl with the voice of a woman and the name of a boy. She is thoughtful, inspiring, and vocal in her beliefs. I hope that more young people will strive to be a little more like Charlie.

Favorite character: Charlie!
Least favorite: Stacy and Charlie’s Mom

[Jade Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original review at http://inkscratchers.blogspot.com/


Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner is a really quick read, but totally entertaining nonetheless.

While this is a middle grade slice-of-life book, the tone is completely different. This book is set in the 1980s and so there is no reference to internet and phones, something that you see a lot of in modern day contemporary books. For me, as a noughties teen through and through, this was a bit of a culture shock, but it just made it totally fresh and original and the story itself is modern even if the setting isn't.

What I totally loved about Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner was Charlie. I think that she is one of the most relateable protahonists I have read in a long time because I totally remember being just like her when I was fourteen years old, nerdy, rebellious and totally socially awkward so I totally got Charlie's reactions and behaviour, which made this book all the better for me. I can also relate to her feelings because she goes through a lot of the things most kids go through at that age - new school, bullying, meeting new friends and losing old friends as well as her own personal problems, which make this book deep but also very entertaining.

This book runs just like any other middle grade book, with the ordinary everyday events mixed in with crazy moments which have you laughing, a particular favorite was Charlie's ride in the doghouse to the board meeting (hah, got you interested now, haven't I?) and that had me laughing like crazy. I also loved the puppy love budding between Charlie and class clown Ross, they were adorable!

While there were some tiny issues, for example I found that the scenes switched too fast and it was all a bit rapid to me, I found this book to be a short, sweet and totally entertaining read. I would recommend it to the kids of the 70/80s and their kids as well!

Overall rating: B+

[Crystal ✬ Lost in Storyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copied from original post at Imaginary Reads.

It’s the 1980’s. Girls and boys electives are separate. Wanting to outshine Kendra, the smartest kid in class, Charlie uses her boyish nickname to sign up for wood shop, and the board decides to let it pass rather than take the trouble of changing of schedule. As it turns out, surviving the class of boys is the least of Charlie’s troubles. A Genetics unit in Biology teaches her that it’s impossible for her, a brown-eyed girl, to have been born from two blue-eyed parents.

For those of you who don’t tend to read historical fiction, Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner can be read as a contemporary novel. The only major differences I noted were gender discrimination and close community; oh, and the term minor niner, which is slang for ninth graders.

Plus, Charlie’s a cool girl, entirely relatable to tweens (she’s fourteen). She’s going through adolescence, trying to figure out where she stands with her parents and peers, and she has to deal with a bunch of guys… who as usual are all dorks, except for the cool new kid. Not that dorks are horrible guys. There was one dork that I really liked: Ross. He’s the funny kid in class that you can’t help liking.

My one big problem is with the pacing of the book. There are several story lines going on, but the plot seems to jump from one to the other without fully developing them. There wasn’t enough plot development for me. I did enjoy this as an afternoon read, but it isn’t the kind of book that I’d buy in the bookstore.

Plot development aside, Dayla Moon has crafty a humorous read with a very real heroine. I recommend this book to tweens looking for a fun mystery book without any of the dark, scary stuff that accompanies a lot of mysteries.

[Paula Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

Going through my Kindle reads is like a lucky dip as I have so many on there to choose from. Today's read is Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner , another great cover and the write-up sounded interesting. The year was 1988 and Charlaine aka Charlie Woodchuck is about to enter the ninth grade. Fed up with the fact that electives aren't equal e.g Boys can't take sewing and cooking and Girls can't take metalwork or woodwork aka shop class. Charlie decides to take a stand and sign uo for the woodwork elective under the name Charlie Woodchuck. Suprisingly , she slips through as they assume she is a boy and Charlie is now enrolled in Shop class. This book has two different storylines , the first is Charlie's stand at taking Shop Class and her by taking the class we read as she puts her activism skills to the test and sets the way for equal rights in choosing electives. The major step though is will Charlie be able to back up her plea with evidence as she takes it to the PTA and the Board of Trustees ? The second storyline follows Charlie as she learns about Genetics in science and this classwork leads her down the road to discovering she is in fact adopted. Can Charlie find out from her parents who her real family is ? Does Charlie have another family out there , that she doesn't know of ?
Charlie Woodchuck is a good story but I did find in places the book quite hard to follow as it does jump about from one thing to another and you feel at times that crucial parts are missing. I would however , think it would be awesome if their was a second book written which followed Charlie as the book was left hanging and I was like Ok , does she tell or not ?
A good read and definitely a book for the 11 - 16 year olds as any older could find themselves getting frustrated as they read the book

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book. In the end I was happy to know Charlie, the main character But until about halfway through the book I felt like I was reading Ramona the Great or some other book for eight-year-olds or younger. The book is far too immature and unsophisticated for modern day teens. It might have been okay for me when I was 14 but 49 years ago we really did have to fight for equal classes. Not that I would have ended up in woodworking. My electives were Drawing 4 and Home Ec 4. That was because I had always been good at art and my mother, aunts and grandmother had taught me to sew. But the holes in my education made those classes impossible. With my luck I would have ended in Woodworking 4 as both grandfathers were carpenters. Then again, I would probably not be able to type with the loss of so many fingers!

Even when my children were 14 this was a dated and immature portrayal of that age. Since I am reading a lot of YA of late, I feel the author should have done the same. I get it, that it is a hard age to deal with. Going from being a kid to hormonal teens is tough no matter the era. So I gave up thinking these things and sucked it up to finish reading the book. By mid-novel I had accepted this version of 14 and started enjoying Charlie.

I read this one as the second book was a complimentary copy from BookRoosters and I don't like reading books out of order.

[Reading Vacation · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Woodchuck stands out. She has a boy’s name, she doesn’t wear the latest styles, and she has zero interest in makeup. Charlie is a tom-boy among a sea of girlie girls. Now, sometimes a character is completely comfortable with standing out. Not in Charlie’s case. She is miserable about it.

The story is set in the simpler time of the 1980’s. There was limited technology and the problems seemed simpler. One of the big controversies were gender-specific classes. Charlie signed up for the boys-only shop class and was accepted because Charlie is a boy’s name. The school only let her stay in because it was too late to change her schedule. I liked the way Dalya Moon incorporated all sorts of details about the 1980’s.

I got even more interested in the story when Charlie started to consider that she may be adopted. I liked that a science lesson on genetics got her mind racing, and I was completely shocked by what she finally found out. Mostly, I liked that Charlie handled herself well and she grew more mature over the course of the story.

RATING

4 Liked

COVER COMMENTS

Charlie looks a bit like me with her brown hair and big brown eyes. I like the cute red hat and Charlie’s smile.

[Jen Halligan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog, A Book and a Latte:

3.5 stars. Minor Niner is a cute Middle Grade story that made me laugh and root for the protagonist, Charlie Woodchuck. The story follows Charlie through her freshman year of high school, though she seemed younger to me. I enjoyed this story, and I think my younger self would have loved this novel.

Though this story takes place in the late-80s, I didn’t feel like I was reading historical fiction... but it probably would to a tween. The 80s references were fun (hello leg warmers!), but the only major thing that stood out was the gender discrimination. I loved that Charlie spoke her mind and stuck up for her self and classmates. She didn’t like that her school had different electives for girls and boys, so instead of complaining about it, she actively worked to have equal choice. She’s a character you can root for.

I do have to say that the second half was a bit odd to me because it skipped around a lot. The plot seemed purposely pieced together instead of the nice flow it had in the beginning.

Overall this was a humorous, fun, and heart-warming read. I would recommend this book to tweens.

[Lisa Kreinheder · Rating 5 out of 5]

*My 11yo daughter, Madison, read this book. The following is her honest review with no input from me.*

The book Charlie by Dalya Moon was great, in my opinion. I loved the story itself, but what made it so much better was how the author presented it. She wrote it in a way that makes the reader feel like they're experiencing everything, too, right along with the main character (in this case, Charlaine).

I loved the pacing, too. Nothing seemed too fast or rushed, and nothing seemed too long or dragged-out to be enjoyable. It was a perfect, consistent pace throughout the book.

Another thing I thought was handled very well was the character development. I went into the book not knowing anything about the characters, but, by the end, I felt like I had gotten to know them personally.

So, with its great story, brilliant writing, perfect pacing and awesome character development, this is definitely one of my favorite novels.

I'd rate this book 5 stars. The author did a brilliant job of writing a brilliant book. ☺

[Megan]

Charlaine "Charlie" Woodchuck feels very small and insignificant on her first day as a clueless, thirteen-year-old freshman at Snowy Cove High School. She's struck by a big idea for remedying that, however: when it comes time to choose electives, she could sign up for the notoriously no-girls-allowed shop class and get away with it. Charlie Woodchuck would go unnoticed among the boys names, right? A little rebellion and a lot of attention just might make unremarkable "minor niner" Charlie somebody. Once her plan is in motion, however, many, many things spiral out of control.

Charlie's no-frills but funny voice is the highlight of this book. The pacing and plotting read clumsily (example: some over-the-top disaster happens tends to happen whenever the protagonist comes close to forcing a parent to tell her the truth behind a big mystery) but Charlie's realistically young-teen point of view was well-developed.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Woodchuck is the most minor of niners. She's the youngest girl at Snowy Cove High School, and so clueless, she wore leg warmers and acid-wash jeans on her first day. Big mistake! Almost as big a mistake as signing up for a boys-only shop class.

Just when she thinks the first week of high school can't get any more weird, Charlie discovers she may be adopted. According to the genetics section in her Science textbook, her eyes should be blue, not brown.

Before she graduates from the ninth grade, the girl with the boy's name and the wrong eye color will employ her detective skills to discover her true identity. She'll use power tools to build fantastical wood creations, and before the year ends, she'll face down the biggest bullies of all: the all-powerful members of Snowy Cove's School Board, which doesn't want girls to take shop.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book! It took me back to my high school days (ahem, not that I'm old or anything), and was nice reprieve from vampires and werewolves. Now, don't get your feathers ruffled, I have nothing against glittering vampires or ferocious loving werewolves, or even passionate guardian angels. But sometimes I just want to read a good, humorous book about real people and real lives without too much heavy-duty drama. This was such a book. Charlie is an extremely likable character with a positive message for today's youth - if you want something, you have to put yourself out there and go for it regardless of what other's may think or say. Doesn't mean it won't make you sick enough to chuck on your Converse's half the time, but at least you may come away with a new found life long love. This would be a good book to have a class set of to read to your eighth or ninth graders.

[moxieBK · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m really glad I stumbled upon this book. I really enjoyed it. Maybe because it’s set during the time I was in HS, although Charlie is a few years younger than me. Still I enjoyed that time, and the setting was very real to me.

The plot, characters, and events are very alive and I was hooked on this story from the first page.

Four stars.




9/10/15 NOTE: I was sad to discover that this author has stopped writing this series (however, I think the second one was about another person…not sure, never got to read it.) In fact, the author has dropped this pen name and picked up another. I have not read anything under this other pen name. I wanted to highlight this note so that if others are trying to find this series (Snowy Cove) they understand why they cannot.

[Emerald Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like awkward moments from high school, then this is a book for you to read.

It follows 14 year old Charlie Woodchuck (Yes that is her real name.) as she starts high school. She's different. She signs up for wood shop which isn't allowed in the eighties. Girls could only take sewing or cooking, and boys could only take metalwork or wood shop. It also doesn't help that within the first few days of school, she thinks she might be adopted.

Follow this character as she survives being a minor niner and deals with everything life throws her.

Recommended for all Middle grade/YA readers.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good book for teens!
I loved this book, finished it in one day! Not that it is a short book, but it is so interesting that you feel that you have to read the book.
I can really connect with the characters, the story and the environments, which makes it a great book to read!

I definitely recommend this book to you!


Edit: I started reading another book, but with this book in my head it was so hard concentrating on the other book. I imagined the characters from this book being in the new book I'm reading and it is very confusing. But I don't mind, it makes the new book more interesting.

So yes, this is a book that gets stuck in your head.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner" is a quick, satisfying read. Charlie, like other thirteen/fourteen-year-olds has her own problems. She manages to deal with the pressure to "stand out" in high school without being unfaithful to herself and who she wants to be. I really appreciated that this story dealt with the pain of being a young teen with problems at home without bogging the reader down in angst and self pity, something I've hated in books since I was old enough to start reading YA literature.
All in all, a cute book with a fun story and a satisfying ending.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because she wants to be better at something than Kendra, 9th grader Charlie (Charlaine) signs up for a boys only woodworking class but soon regrets it. She finds out her mother is not her natural mother. Her best friend Stacy's mother is a lush. Sue-Ann Jackson is someone other than who she claims to be.

Charlie speaks up and ya, she has a right to though she could be more circumspect in her words and delivery.

[T.J. Dell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an awesome trip in the way back machine! Charlie Woodchuck is guarenteed to win you over as she drags you along through her freshman year of high school. As if a new school, and new friends, and boys suddenly flashing on her radar aren't enough-- Charlie has to learn the hardway that parents are people too. Throw all that drama together with some acid wash jeans and a laser disc player and I had a GREAT night! I couldn't put it down.

[Kerem Mermutlu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve just finished ‘Charlie Woodchuck is a minor niner’ and i thought it was very sweet and adorable. If you want to read a book that perfectly describes the problems, heartbreaks and joys of being 14 years old, and having weird parents, and having annoying school friends, then this is the book for you! I really couldn’t stop reading it. And next I think i’m going to buy ‘this is not a test’ for my kindle. Everyone keeps telling me it’s awesome, so I can’t wait!!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in the 1980's. Charlie is in high school (although really this seems way more like a Juv book than a YA book) and she wants to take woodshop, not home ec - but that just isn't done in that era. She gets in though cuz no one catches on since Charlie is a boys name and then it is too late.

There's nothing really outstanding about this story - but nothing awful either. Meh.

[Tiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story, it made me think back to my junior high and high school days. Overall the story and dialog felt realistic and it was a sweet story. I love that it took place in the 80's as well.

The original title and cover were much more interesting than the revised. I don't understand the marketing changes the author is making.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was adorable. I really liked Charlie, and I thought the plots were interesting. I really enjoyed how Charlie took control of things at school and at home. A quick and delightful coming-of-age, definitely recommended.

[Jennifer Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a quick, fun, adorable read. Charlie (main female) is a high school freshman in the 80's. All the quirks of high school plus one of my favorite decades. This book is good for tweens on up to adults. I highly recommend.