AustLit

'Sidney Kidman runs away from home at thirteen and travels to the outback on a one-eyed horse. He finds stray cows in the scrub, swims across rivers by hanging on to a bullock’s tail and dreams of having the biggest herd of cattle in Australia. Many years later, when the workers on Sid’s cattle station organise a giant rodeo for Sid’s birthday party the cattle from the bush take fright in the city. People panic and horses bolt. Can the Kidman stockmen save the day? King of the Outback tells the rags to riches story of one of Australia’s greatest pastoral pioneers.' (Publication summary)

'A picture book series about the extraordinary men and women who have shaped Australia's history, including the bush poet Banjo Paterson.

'Banjo Paterson is one of Australia's most loved poets. This is the story of how he came to write his legendary ballads ‘The Man from Snowy River' and ‘Waltzing Matilda'.' (Publication summary)

'Big Tom Kruse was a real Australian hero. He'd pile his truck high with bags of mail, and furniture, and passengers, and would drive back and forth, across the outback, come rain or shine' (Back cover).

'By the age of thirty Reg had discovered the oldest fossils in the world and some of its deepest under-sea canyons. He had worked at Australia's first two uranium mines and searched for material to construct the world's first atomic bomb. By the time he was forty he had helped found SANTOS and discovered the great Cooper Basin oil and gas fields - Australia's largest on-shore petroleum province; he had set up the largest private geological consulting firm in the country; built his own boat and diving chamber; and mastered the primitive art of scuba diving. By the time he was fifty he had driven the first vehicle across the Simpson Desert and crossed the continent from north, south, east and west. He had also launched Arkaroola Wildlife Sanctuary, one of Australia's first eco-tourism resorts. The rest of his life he would devote to the unlikely bedfellows of mining and conservation, and to his insatiable love of geology. Oil; uranium; geology; conservation; these are the catch-cries of our times and the life of this intrepid, determined and oft-times irreverent pioneering Australian, renowned as one of our nation's greatest geologists, embodies them all. Written in a lively narrative style, Rock Star will make you laugh and cry and introduce you to a fascinating world that you never knew existed and won't easily forget.' (Publication summary)

'For the people who lived in the desert between Marree and Birdsville, contact with the outside world was hard and sporadic - but one man was their lifeline: Tom Kruse. For more than twenty years he was the connection with the outside world for the families, station workers and others who lived along the Birdsville Track. 

'Tom delivered everything from the mail and newspapers to fuel and food - whole communities waited in anticipation for him to drop off their supplies. But it was a hard life, from regularly making running repairs to his truck to unloading and reloading tons of stores so that he could ferry his cargo across flooded creeks. Come sandhills, hell or high water, Tom Kruse kept faith with the locals up and down the Track. Tom was a real Australian hero - and no matter what happened, the mail always got through.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2015 ed.).