Heather Smith

Heather Smith brings humor and empathy to novels about young people facing difficult family circumstances while learning that others can change. Chicken Girl follows Poppy, a teenager humiliated after an online reaction to a photograph of her vintage clothing. She abandons the style she loves and takes a job waving a restaurant sign while hidden inside a chicken costume. That anonymity introduces her to six-year-old Miracle, photographer Buck, and Lewis, a teenager carrying major responsibilities at home. Penguin Teen Canada released Chicken Girl in 2019. Smith, originally from Newfoundland, also wrote The Agony of Bun O’Keefe, which received the White Pine Award and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award. Chicken Girl shares that book’s attention to outsiders and improvised forms of care. Through Poppy’s changing view of her twin brother, new acquaintances, and herself, the novel asks how optimism can survive embarrassment, betrayal, and incomplete knowledge of other people’s lives.