Aborigines; Native Americans

These are hugely simplified versions of the same titles in the 'Threatened Cultures' series published by Wayland in 1992. The chapter arrangement, photos, drawings and maps are all exactly the same but now the text is roughly a quarter the length and seems aimed at Years 6/7 rather than Years 10/11. Inevitably-a lot of the subtlety and detail in the original books has disappeared and some of the illustrations no longer have a reference point in the text, but the social and political messages still hit home hard.

I suppose it makes good business sense to keep the same layout and change the text, but when you look at the books from the two series side by side you find that the illustrations, whilst the same size, tend to dominate in the simpler books, almost encouraging you to ignore the text - but in the original books illustrations and text seem altogether more harmonised.