The Rabbit Problem

The much decorated Emily Gravett returns exploring the mathematics and comedy of a rapidly expanding tribe of rabbits. Richard Adams may have tactfully passed over the propensity of the species to breed like, well, rabbits; but dear old Fibonacci, who, I’m reliably informed, has gained much latter-day fame from being mentioned by Dan Brown, was puzzling over the arithmetic back in the 13th century. Here, working on his findings, Gravett offers us a calendar of the rabbit year (there’s even a hole in the usual place so you can hang it on the wall, but not if you’re easily confused, because it’s not 2009 or even 2010 in rabbit land) demonstrating how, in that time, starting with two lonely rabbits, one field can get very crowded indeed. As with her previous books, it’s a bold idea, boldly executed. There are lots of good jokes as the months go by, with cleverly designed parodic inserts, like rabbit knitting patterns, baby books, a ration book (scarce food supplies in May) and a carrot cookery book (food surplus in September); and she may even have gone to the trouble to make each of the steadily growing population distinguishable, although I gave up worrying about it in July when there were only 13 pairs (89 pairs in November). The only drawback for me is that the population explosion quickly limits the scope for pictorial humour, apart from the problem of how to cram them all into the space, and that is a pity for an illustrator with this much talent. The fun is mostly to be found in the inserted texts, which makes it more suitable for an older age group. There’s a triumph of paper engineering as the finale.