Poster Boys
By Scott Woodard
Reviewed by Alison McCaffrey
It all starts when Nolan, one of prestigious Highview Grammar’s least popular year nine boys, smashes cool kid James’s nose on Winter Sports Day. James’s high-ranking political father has taught him how to get what he wants, but the Headmaster won’t compensate for James’s life-changing injury. Then there’s Edward, who has been living in the shadow of Nolan’s insistent friendship for years, and wants nothing more than to be better than that position.
Looking for a little payback, James recruits Nolan to help him force the school to remove the house competition, and Edward sees a chance to get in on the plan, elevate his status and free himself of Nolan once and for all. When the three year nine boys band together in secret, armed with Nolan’s stellar research skills and James’s affinity for telling ‘Ruths’, so begins the first campaign of posters secreted around the school telling students the house competition is a sham. What follows is a high school political smear campaign filled with intrigue and imagination, destined for the history books.
Poster Boys is the debut novel for Canberra author Scott Woodard. Shattering the tinted glass around private boys’ schools with biting satire and dry humour, we’re offered a glimpse into one of the hierarchal systems that shape generations of teenagers in Australia. Pushed to extremes that encompass the absolute hardest parts of being in the lower levels of a high-end school, Woodard explores what would happen if the two ends of the social ladder were thrown together, first during a terrible accident, then as the result of it.
Stepping back in time to the 1990s, Woodard explores what happens when the bullied becomes the bully, when the system works against everyone including those who created it, and what high school looked like before social media was everywhere. A story with friendship, self-acceptance and finding your people at its heart, Poster Boys is a fun and satisfying read that throws the heavy stuff in your face while making you forget it was the point. Great for tweens and teens in the early years of high school, especially those who feel like they haven’t quite figured out where they fit in yet.
Teacher Resources
Lothian Children’s Books 2026
Scott Woodard
