The Rabbit Problem

by Emily Gravett, Emily Gravett (Illustrator)

Overview

How does 1+1 = 288? A family of rabbits soon supplies the answer in this funny story! Hop along to Fibonacci's Field and follow Lonely and Chalk Rabbit through a year as they try to cope with their fast expanding brood and handle a different seasonal challenge each month, from the cold of February to the wet of April and the heat of July. This extraordinary picture book is packed with gorgeous details and novelty elements including a baby rabbit record book, a carrot recipe book and a surprise pop-up ending.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442412552
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	11/02/2010
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	11.56(w) x 11.78(h) x 0.45(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Emily Gravett is the author and illustrator of many children’s books, including Matilda’s Cat, Again!, Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears (winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal), Meerkat Mail, Tidy, and Old Hat. Her first book, Wolves, was the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Award for Illustration. Her second book, Orange Pear Apple Bear, was a Quills Award finalist, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and on the shortlist for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Emily lives in Brighton, England, with her partner, their daughter, and the family dog. Visit her at EmilyGravett.com.

Emily Gravett is the author and illustrator of many children’s books, including Matilda’s Cat, Again!, Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears (winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal), Meerkat Mail, Tidy, and Old Hat. Her first book, Wolves, was the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Award for Illustration. Her second book, Orange Pear Apple Bear, was a Quills Award finalist, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and on the shortlist for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Emily lives in Brighton, England, with her partner, their daughter, and the family dog. Visit her at EmilyGravett.com.

Editorial Reviews

* "In Gravett’s gifted hands, an old math problem springs to life—and more life and more life! Medieval mathematician Fibonacci’s “rabbit problem,” in which bunnies breed at a specified rate, provides the structure of this glorious faux–wall calendar that watches a rabbit community from January to December...Readers needn’t care about the math of Fibonacci Numbers to love the hilarious, jam-packed visual details, many of which are playfully metatextual...Endless fun to pore over for kids and math-minded or geeky adults.—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "Whimsical ideas proliferate as fast as rabbits in Gravett's splendid sendup of Fibonacci's query."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This hilarious (and accurate) tale can be enjoyed by the numerically challenged and gifted alike."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

In Gravett's gifted hands, an old math problem springs to life—and more life and more life! Medieval mathematician Fibonacci's "rabbit problem," in which bunnies breed at a specified rate, provides the structure of this glorious faux–wall calendar that watches a rabbit community from January to December. The title phrase alters monthly to portray current conditions in Fibonacci's Field—for example, rainy April is The Soggy Rabbit Problem. Gorgeous art uses watercolors, oil-based pencil and carrots. The bottom calendar pages feature notations ("check babies for fleas"—"are fleas edible?") and beautiful, bountiful paper layerings, some with complex depicted overlaps, others physically real—a newspaper in July's Bored Rabbit Problem and a cookbook for September's Too Many Carrots Problem have mini-pages that turn. Readers needn't care about the math of Fibonacci Numbers to love the hilarious, jam-packed visual details, many of which are playfully metatextual. In a magnificent pop-up climax, the rabbits gnaw a hole in December's page and explode out of the teeming field. Endless fun to pore over for kids and math-minded or geeky adults. (Picture book. 4-9, Adult)

Kirkus Reviews

Until now, the only funny things about Fibonacci numbers…has been their name. Enter Emily Gravett, who, with her well-honed funny bone…makes use of Fibonacci's original problem (two rabbits in a field multiplying at the rate of two offspring per month) and turns it into an abundantly clever lesson in overpopulation, economics, intergenerational attitudes and more.
—The Washington Post

Kristi Jemtegaard