"Who will save us from the rabbits?"
(i) Model Review - The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan
The Rabbits written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan is a powerful and engaging book for students of all ages. This picture book is compelling and sophisticated and provides a wide range of discussion points for older students. The underlying environmental themes also allow older students and adults to engage more throughly with this text. The Rabbits tells the story of the colonization and industrialization of Australia by Western people and how the sacred land was settled by Europeans over two hundred years ago. The book also discusses the theme of violence in society and allows the readers to critically reflect on these important issues.
The Rabbits written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan is a powerful and engaging book for students of all ages. This picture book is compelling and sophisticated and provides a wide range of discussion points for older students. The underlying environmental themes also allow older students and adults to engage more throughly with this text. The Rabbits tells the story of the colonization and industrialization of Australia by Western people and how the sacred land was settled by Europeans over two hundred years ago. The book also discusses the theme of violence in society and allows the readers to critically reflect on these important issues.
Marsden and Tan utilise corresponding and complementary main characters as animals to represent the Aboriginal people and the non-Aboriginal people in the text. The characters are used as metaphors in the story to portray the ideas and feelings how of the people experienced this event many years ago. The rabbits, the western people, invade the land and begin to multiply, spread and proceed to overrun the country. Marsden and Tans use of rabbit characters is an excellent choice as they highlight and imitate similar behaviour as the western people in this story. The Aboriginal people are given the characters of small native marsupials, which similarly portray the Aboriginal people perfectly. As the story continues, the rabbits grow and invade the marsupials land as they begin to decrease in numbers. Marsdens text and storyline is powerfully enhanced by Tans illustrations which juxtapose these strong shapes with busy double-page spreads of heavy, symbolic information. This demonstrates the connections and symbolism clearly throughout the story allowing the reader to remain interested and engaged.
The interesting and unusual illustrations are a perfect pair for the simplistic language allowing young students to enjoy reading this picture book. Marsdens use of words makes it easy to imagine what is happening in the story, whilst Tans illustrations assist with communicating the meanings and understanding demonstrating a clear idea of loss, grief and helplessness. Both the written language and visual images allow the reader to convey ideas, thoughts, feelings and concepts towards the story as the simple language suggests to the reader to further examine the meaningful illustrations. While Mardsens written text portrays what is happening, the illustrations add extra details and information to therefore hold equivalent meanings in the text and images, as well as some complementary meanings in the individual illustrations. Tan uses double page spreads on every page of the book to emphasise the importance of individual moments in time and give the reader an insight into the landscapes experienced. Tan also uses exaggeration in his illustrations to highlight how terrified and helpless the natives would have felt when they were invaded by the first white men. Tan also highlights the use of colour within his illustrations to show the gradual destruction of the land as the red earth and blue sky on the first page slowly changes to brown pollution due to the colonisation. Hidden meanings within the images are utilised frequently throughout the book which also connect to the written ideas. Tan uses a ripped paper affect as boarders of illustrations which interconnects with the idea that the Indigenous Australia's have literally had their lives torn apart, therefore further connecting with and portraying the characters emotions.
The Rabbits is highly recommend for older students as it will challenge and engagement their maturing minds. The students will appreciate the exquisite illustrations and real life storyline as they automatically deconstruct and anaylse the story. Overall, Marsden and Tan have created a book which tells the story of white men’s invasion of Australia through the use of words, exaggeration, symbolism and powerful illustrations. The authors have positioned the reader to see the story from the Aboriginals point of view and therefore challenge non-Aboriginal people to reconsider their attitudes and ideas of Aboriginal people.