Reading Race

In Reading Race Clare Bradford looks at the ways in which Australia's indigenous peoples have been - and continue to be - represented in books for children. These varying representations have helped to colour the attitudes, beliefs and assumptions of different generations of Australians. She draws on examples from popular and literary children's books of all genres - fiction, non-fiction, picture books and school texts - to uncover the different ideologies of race that have informed Australian children's texts from the nineteenth century to the present. In doing so, she demonstrates striking cultural shifts in the representation of Aboriginality over time. Reading Race offers a ground-breaking and intelligent picture of how Australian children's books, by both white and Aboriginal writers, have negotiated the matter of race.