The Rabbits

Book info: The Rabbits (Hardcover, 32 pages – Lothian Books, 2000) – Lothian Books, 2000. Language: Eng.

Winner of the Children's Book Council Children's Picture Book of the Year (1999). A dramatically moving allegory of colonisation told from the viewpoint of native Australian animals. This stunning picture book examines the consequences of the arrival of a group of rabbits with entirely unfamiliar ways. The rabbits bring new food and animals, and make their own houses to live in, eventually dominating the environment and its other inhabitants. The change in the native animals' environment is brilliantly depicted by Shaun Tan's illustrations, which also serve to highlight the 'strangeness' of the rabbits. The parallels with our own experience of colonisation are many; stolen children, the onset of industrialisation, and population increases.