This book is bold. A bed-time story this ain’t. Its prose slaps you around the face to make sure you are paying attention. It is assertive and provocative. It sucks you into the time that was, on the Ballarat goldfields of the mid-nineteenth century. The history of Victoria’s gold rushes and the Eureka Stockade is one of Australia’s well-worn foundational stories. Each year … [Read more...] about Review: Forgotten Rebels of Eureka
Australian Women Writers Challenge
Review: My Ngarrindjeri Calling
Warning: This post contains references to Aboriginal people who are now deceased. The books referred to in this post may also contain references and images of deceased Aboriginal people. “Never put black history on white paper” the elders taught her. One time Doreen Kartinyeri did not follow this instruction. She wrote about secret women’s business on Kumarangk (Hindmarsh … [Read more...] about Review: My Ngarrindjeri Calling
Review: Paint me Black by Claire Henty-Gebert
One day I was reading brief accounts in the newspaper written by some people who were over one hundred years old. And there she was, Margaret Somerville, the link to the book Paint Me Black, that was waiting on my bedroom floor to be read. I was a missionary, I went to Croker Island, just off Darwin, and was a cottage mother at a home for part-Aboriginal children. The … [Read more...] about Review: Paint me Black by Claire Henty-Gebert
Kitty’s War by Janet Butler
This is the kind of history I want to read. Thorough research, deep analysis and compelling writing, Kitty’s War by Janet Butler engaged me from cover to cover. In Kitty’s War author, Janet Butler, does not merely recount what she has learned from the diary of World War I nurse, Kit McNaughton, she interrogates McNaughton’s diary, draws heavily on a myriad of contemporary … [Read more...] about Kitty’s War by Janet Butler
Our Schools and the War: the Victorian Education Dept and WWI
War is not just about tactics on the battlefield or the machinations of political leaders. It is also about community, both at the site of active fighting and in the home towns and cities that have seen their men disappear to fight. In 'Our Schools and the War' Rosalie Triolo explores Australia’s participation in World War I in terms of community. She focuses on the … [Read more...] about Our Schools and the War: the Victorian Education Dept and WWI