Analysis Of Nona And Me By Clair Atkins

“Nona and me” (2014), a debut young adult novel by Clair Atkins, purposefully depicts a coming of age story of a fifteen-year-old narrator named Rosie and her inner conflicts in regards to where her loyalties stand. The prime script of this novel centres around the once inseparable friendship that existed between Rosie a non-Indigenous teenager and her childhood friendship with an Aboriginal girl named Nona, which becomes strained due to the political and cultural issues within this Northern Territory community. This novel is a powerful exploration of the dilemmas faced by adolescence in their inner desires to belong, epitomised by Rosie’s battle whether she will lean towards her childhood best friend and figurative sister, or abandoning her …show more content…
Additionally, Atkins uses flashbacks in order to give insight into Nona, exhibiting a complexity of both positive and negative attributes, where this realism of character resonates with Jakes notion (2009.p.9), that Australian writers who are striving to illustrate a valid representation of Australian society must include Indigenous characters with a diversity of backgrounds. The passion in the author 's writings is clearly visible in her depictions of the Arnhem Land community that Rosie lives in. Set in the outback Australian landscape amidst the 2007 political agendas, particularly in relation to John Howards controversial interventionist policies, it provides readers with the opportunity to question the injustices of Australia’s past and the continuance of such wrongs in contemporary wider …show more content…
Shipp (2012, 24) argues that there is an opportunity to amend the imbalance that exists within schools by the inclusion of Aboriginal cultures, in order to enhance all student’s perceptions of broader Australian society. Similarly, Raughton (2004, 47) proposes the need to include literature within the English curriculum that connects with the diverse social realities of the period, as it enables students to discover other cultures, as well as offering a window to become their own self-critiques. Atkins decisively mergers Aboriginal expressions into her writing, applying to outcome EN5-3B (NSWBOS, 2012, p. 138), were this text presents the opportunity to explore the use of Aboriginal dialects alongside English. Burke and Daxton (2008, p.63) praise the authors cultural knowledge in dealing with these racial and familial issues, but more importantly maintaining sight of the character’s journey through adolescence, and thus being able to effectively connect with its young