Nona and Me

Book excerpt: Rosie and Nona are sisters. Yapas. They are also best friends. It doesn’t matter that Rosie is white and Nona is Aboriginal: their family connections tie them together for life. The girls are inseparable until Nona moves away at the age of nine. By the time she returns, they’re in Year 10 and things have changed. Rosie prefers to hang out in the nearby mining town, where she goes to school with the glamorous Selena and her gorgeous older brother, Nick. When a political announcement highlights divisions between the Aboriginal community and the mining town, Rosie is put in a difficult position: will she have to choose between her first love and her oldest friend? Winner, Book of the Year: 2016 NT Literary Awards Highly commended, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Writing for Young Adults Longlisted, 2015 Inky Awards Honour Book, 2015 Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year for Older Reader Shortlisted, 2016 Territory Read Award ‘A powerful coming-of-age story ... Atkins writes with clear-eyed sensitivity, and although I longed to hear Nona’s voice, its absence is deliberate and effective. Nona & Me is poignant young-adult fiction invoking the complex and often overlooked realities of remote indigenous life.’ —Sydney Morning Herald ‘[Clare Atkins] wrestles with some of this country's most hotly debated political issues with a rare lightness of touch. [Nona & Me is] a convincing portrait of a naive but feverish first love, friendships waxing and waning, and the clash between fitting in and sticking to your values. Above all, there's a warmth and optimism that's hard to resist.’ —Sunday Age ‘This [is a] powerful, beautifully contoured story of cross-cultural friendship.’ —The Weekend Australian