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Author Study: Poppy Nwosu teachers' review
Posted:
June 30, 2024
Brief description and distinctive features
For Stage 5
Poppy Nwosu has made an art form of the teen romance, with realistic characters and dialogue that capture that aching self-consciousness and dramatic up and down of adolescent lives and loves. Girls in Years 9–11 will relish this trio of romantic stories with their vibrant diversity and endearing characters, clever dialogue and realistic settings. Boys should like them too with Teddy, Jude and Obi demonstrating how consent can, and should, operate in life, as well as in these complex and nuanced stories about relationships. Everyone will find something to love in these perfectly plotted novels.
Poppy grew up in Queensland, studied music at university and moved to Ireland before returning to Australia and living and writing in Adelaide. Making Friends with Alice Dyson was shortlisted for the 2019 Readings Young Adult Book Prize and 2018 Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award. Road Tripping with Pearl Nash was listed in the CBCA Book of the Year Notables for 2022. Poppy Nwosu is also the editor of Hometown Haunts, a collection of horror stories by a wide selection of Australian authors and published by Wakefield Press.
Brief description of Making Friends with Alice Dyson
Making friends with Alice Dyson is a classic study in teenage relationships and the structures of the rom-com. Clever and conscientious Alice Dyson hasn’t much else in her life but study, when a video clip of her dancing with a well-known school troublemaker is circulated at school. Furious, Alice is keen to find out who was responsible. It was just a brief and spontaneous duet with Teddy Taualai after they got off the train, but now she is the centre of unwanted attention. What is more important is that she quite enjoyed the dancing. Teddy certainly did and he keeps bumping into Alice and demanding to be a friend.
Poppy Nwosu has created an intriguing character in Alice, as she ignores, connects and disconnects with Teddy and learns that reputations can be lost for no good reason. There are problems for Alice in being pulled out of her comfort zone, problems for May, her only friend, who struggles for acceptance from the social crowd, and problems for Teddy as his honesty, openness and intelligence don’t protect him from stereotyping and misunderstanding. How Alice deals with the ups and downs of her relationships and how friendship with Teddy turns to love is deftly handed by Nwosu.
Reputation and stereotyping are part of the appeal of this entertaining novel, with bullying, identity and anxiety hovering in the wings.
Brief description of Taking Down Evelyn Tait
In Poppy Nwosu’s second YA novel, Taking Down Evelyn Tait, the author takes a different tack with Lottie, a 16-year-old protagonist, who was always in trouble. The story opens with Lottie, a heavy metal fan and fanatic tomato grower causing a huge mess of broken beakers and equipment in the science lab when she discovers best friend, Grace Singh, is dating good girl Evelyn Tait, Lottie’s great hate. Lottie’s chats with the principal are hilarious but don’t prevent a suspension. Jude, the boy next door and good buddy to Lottie, suggests she pursue a revenge strategy in which she outdoes Evelyn in the good girl stakes. What compounds the problem with Evelyn is that the reader discovers Lottie’s dad married Celeste, mother of Evelyn one year ago, and they both moved into Lottie’s apartment, and Lottie and Evelyn must share a bedroom! Adding to the mix good-looking Sebastian starts to be interested in Lottie and then Jude kisses Lottie and confusion reigns. While Lottie still blazes with energy, her journey to being a kinder person, who finds out more about herself and her friends, is joyful and disarming.
Brief description of Road Tripping with Pearl Nash
Road Tripping with Pearl Nash has another engaging student on the move. Pearl Nash has Daisy as one close friend, but Daisy seems distant as her relationship with Lachlan grows more serious. When Daisy backs out of accompanying Pearl to the end of year school party in the bush, Pearl takes off in her van on her own road trip to find a missing Nanna and unexpectedly ends up (begrudgingly) giving fellow school member, Obi Okocha, a lift. Obi has a wonderful smile, but Pearl thinks he has an irritating attitude. Breakdowns, arguments, a night together in the van, and some passionate kissing move the plot forward, but mutual self-consciousness stalls the budding relationship. As the sexual tension continues to rise and Nanna is found, they finally make it to the end of year party and many relationships are sorted in a most satisfying way.
Distinctive features of Poppy Nwosu's novels
- Carefully plotted self-discovery and coming of age stories
- Crisp dialogue that crackles amid the awkwardness of teenage life
- Authentic teen lives with messy and complex relationships and confusion everywhere
- The journeys that the protagonists take to honesty and kindness are important milestones in their lives and are very relevant to students in Years 9 and 10
- Explores friendship, first love, family, bulling, racism, reputation, stereotyping, self-esteem and loyalty
- Captures the ‘enemies to friends to romances’ cycle so well with sharp tongues and sexual tension
Ways to use Poppy Nwosu's novels in the classroom
Class discussion on Genre of romantic comedy (Rom-com)
In the classroom start with a definition and discussion on what romantic comedy is all about. Naturally enough romantic comedy combines elements of humour and romance that focus on the follies and misunderstandings of young lovers, and the humorous aspects of romantic relationships. Protagonists face obstacles and interruptions they must overcome to reach a happy ending.
Structures and conventions
In a class discussion consider what are the classic elements of a romantic comedy.
The class could start by suggesting well-known films, novels and plays e.g. The Princess Bride (1987), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Clueless (1995), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing (the 1993 film version directed by Kenneth Branagh is particularly good), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Shakespeare in Love (1998), and making suggestions about the usual conventional elements of the genre e.g.
- Characters meet and like/ dislike each other
- Obstacles, misunderstandings, complications, impediments to a relationship
- Humorous/embarrassing scenes
- Sharp tongues and sexual tension
- Reconciliation, rediscovery of each other, coming back together
- Happy ending
Wide reading for pleasure
Several copies of each of Making Friend with Alice Dyson, Taking Down Evelyn Tait and Road Tripping with Pearl Nash in a classroom could end with many students wanting to read all three! Ask students in groups to talk about the similarities and differences between the three books.
Group work
Group students according to the book they read. Students could then consider if Poppy Nwosu follows or subverts the established rom-com elements. Students should develop a table for ONE novel under the following headings:
| Suggested elements (or use the agreed elements following class discussion) | Elements of rom-com genre in your text | Evidence from the text | Examples of compliance or subverting the conventions |
| Characters meet and like/ dislike each other | |||
| Obstacles, misunderstandings, complications, impediments | |||
| Humorous/embarrassing scenes | |||
| Sharp tongues and sexual tension | |||
| Reconcile, rediscover each other, come back together | |||
| Happy ending |
Then compare their findings in a joint group presentation.
Creative writing
Students write their own romantic comedy short story/dialogue which will challenge the conventions by:
- Reversing gender roles
- Overturning some of the conventions
- Introducing a more serious element or subject e.g. two of Poppy Nwosu’s novels refer to racism
- Transferring the romantic comedy to another space or time
- Making the circumstances and setting more extreme or far-fetched e.g. the mash up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith.
Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English 7-10 syllabus
Text requirements:
For more recommended texts suitable for Stage 5, explore our Year 9 texts and study guides and Year 10 texts and study guides.
Making Friend with Alice Dyson, Taking Down Evelyn Tait and Road Tripping with Pearl Nash are novels (extended prose) by an Australian author. They include a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.
Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content
Understanding and responding to texts A | EN5-URA-01
Characterisation
- Analyse how engaging, dynamic and complex characters are constructed in texts using language features and structures, and use these features and structures in own texts
- Explore how characters in texts can be lifelike constructions with whom audiences establish intellectual and emotional connections, and can be perceived to reflect, challenge or subvert particular values and attitudes
- Analyse how characters can serve structural roles in narrative, such as foils and drivers of action and conflict, and manipulate these ideas when composing own texts
Understanding and responding to texts B | EN5-URB-01
Style
- Analyse how the distinctive aesthetic qualities and stylistic features of a text can shape and be shaped by its purpose, and experiment with this in own texts
- Evaluate how particular styles in text can be privileged according to context
- Examine the way an author’s distinct personal style shapes meaning in their work
- Appreciate how the style of a text can represent larger ideas of literary movements and genres
Understanding and responding to texts C | EN5-URC-01
Genre
- Analyse how elements of genre in texts can shape the way ideas and values are represented and perceived, and experiment with elements of genre in own texts to shape meaning and response
- Reflect on the evolution, adaptation, subversion and hybridity of genre in different time periods and cultural contexts, and how they demonstrate changing values
Expressing ideas and composing texts A | EN5-ECA-01
Writing
- Select and adapt appropriate codes, conventions and structures to shape meaning when composing written texts that are analytical, informative, persuasive, discursive and/or imaginative
- Develop a personal and informed voice that generates ideas and positions an audience through selection of appropriate word-level language and text-level features
- Experiment with language to create tone, atmosphere and mood
- Use rhetorical language strategically and subtly to shape complex ideas and convince others of a point of view, as appropriate to audience and purpose
- Use tense accurately and purposefully
- Apply narrative voice to depict complex ideas and enhance engagement
- Create engaging and authentic temporal and spatial settings for a range of purposes and audiences
(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)
Connecting texts
Jane Sherlock and Deb McPherson are experienced and passionate English teachers. They have also been involved in the education sector as authors and presenters at teaching conferences.
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