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  • Published: 1 July 2008
  • ISBN: 9781741662764
  • Imprint: Random House Australia Children's
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $19.99

You're History, Mate! Dingbats, Dropkicks, Dills, Duds & Disasters in Australian History




Among all those legendary bushrangers, heroic explorers, genius inventors and upstanding politicians in Australian history, aren't there some duds in the pack? Of course there are!

Among all those legendary bushrangers, heroic explorers, genius inventors and upstanding politicians in Australian history, aren't there some duds in the pack? Of course there are!

Paul Stafford has rounded up all the dingbats, dropkicks and disasters in our glorious past. All together now, let us say to them . . . 'YOU'RE HISTORY, MATE!'

Which explorer claimed to have found an enormous reef of gold then lost it again (and lost himself in the process)? Heard about the men who sold their shares in BHP just days before the mineral discovery that made it the richest mine in history? Surely it can't be true that one of our politicians drank a glass of herbicide to prove it wasn't poisonous? And how did the police catch the ugliest, least successful and unluckiest colonial bushranger you could ever hope to find?

Learn about some of the lesser-known episodes buried in our history and what life was really like in colonial Australia, right through to the 1920s and beyond.

  • Published: 1 July 2008
  • ISBN: 9781741662764
  • Imprint: Random House Australia Children's
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $19.99

About the authors

Paul Stafford

Paul Stafford is a literacy consultant in primary and secondary schools throughout Australia, specialising in reluctant male readers. One of his literacy projects for boys, 'The Dead Bones Society', won a NSW Local Government Cultural Award in 2007. Paul has written thirteen fiction books, distributed throughout Australasia. He has published four titles in the Horror High series with Random House Australia, and You're History, Mate!, about the dingbats, dills and disasters in Australia's history.

Shane Nagle

Shane Nagle began as a graphic designer but by the early 1990s illustrating had become his major pursuit. Shane has since been published in magazines like Time, Rolling Stone, BRW, Quadrant and Panorama, and in over forty children's books; several of which were also written by him. He has had several private commissions and exhibitions, including a series of drawings exhibited at the International Rock Art Symposium, Capo Di Ponte, Italy.

Shane returned to Melbourne in 2008 - after six years based in Byron Bay - where he divides his time between design, illustration and his latest love: acting.