Manticores are not Real

Manticores are not Real
ISBN: 9781925839500
Publication Date: 16 December 2019

This is a brief, fast-paced rhyming adventure of a small boy Micah's 'dream inside a dream' of meeting a Manticore - a mythical (Persian) creature who in this instance bears the face of a man, the body of a lion, horns of a gazelle and the wings of a flamingo.

Those features are drawn from Micah's original dream of a 'wild hullaballoo' of lions, flamingos and gazelles. He is woken - or thinks he is woken - by the commotion caused by the crash landing of a sneezing, lost beast called Marco in his backyard. Micah travels on Marco's back to his home to attend the 'grand party'. He discovers that Manticores exist along with a host of other creatures who were thought to have departed earth, at least according to Micah's parents.

Micah and Marco attend the raucous grand party and, exhausted, return home. Micah is woken to the sound of his dad playfully scolding him for sleeping in. The story ends with Micah thinking that it was just a dream but Marco peering through the bedroom window.

About the Author

Nick Dyrenfurth is a Melborune-based writer and academic. He is the Executive Director of the John Curtin Research Centre. Nick is the author and/or editor of eight non-fiction books, including A Little History of the Australian Labor Party (2011), Mateship: A Very Australian History (2015), 'A powerful influence on Australian affairs': A new history of the AWU (2017), Heroes and Villains: the Rise and Fall of the Early Australian Labor Party (2011), and Getting the Blues: The Future of Australian Labor (2019).

Nick is a leading media commentator writing for The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, Daily Telegraph, The Monthly, and regularly appears on radio and tele...