The Velveteen Rabbit (2024)

Perfection.

One Christmas morning, little Boy receives many presents, and among them a Velveteen Rabbit. At first he isn’t noticed, but with time Rabbit finds a place in little Boy’s heart. Rabbit snuggles with him at night, and plays with him during the day. But Rabbit knows he is not Real, he's wearing out, and one fateful day little Boy becomes ill.

I. LOVED. THIS. WITH. ALL. MY. HEART! I’m dying to go to a store, get a stuffed rabbit and huge it and love it until it becomes real. This is what perfection tastes like, a kind of book I so rarely find. This children’s book is regarded in many lists as one of the best ever written, and very rightfully so. Highly enjoyable as a child for its simplicity, and as an adult for its meaning. Utterly endearing and touching to no end, with an unforgettable lesson on love, and life.

I’ve been wanting to read this ever since I watched that episode in Friends where Chandler gifts this book to Kathy; and it took me nothing less than twenty years to get to it but the day finally arrived. Best day ever.

It’s public domain. You can find it HERE.

-----------------------------------------------

Perfección.

Una mañana de Navidad, pequeño Nene recibe muchos regalos, y entre ellos un Conejo de felpa. Al principio no es notado, pero con el tiempo Conejo halla un lugar en el corazón de pequeño Nene. Conejo se acurruca con él en las noches, y juega con él durante el día. Pero Conejo sabe que no es Real, se está gastando, y un fatídico día pequeño Nene se enferma.

AME. ESTO. CON. TODO. MI. CORAZON! Muero por ir a una tienda, tomar un conejo de felpa y abrazarlo y amarlo hasta que se vuelva real. Este es el sabor de la perfección, un tipo de libro que rara vez encuentro. Este libro para niños es considerado en muchas listas como uno de los mejores jamás escritos, y con justicia. Altamente disfrutatle para un niño por su simplicidad, y para un adulto por su significado. Terriblemente entrañable y conmovedor hasta el infinito, y con una inolvidable lección sobre el amor, y la vida.

He querido leerlo desde que vi ese episodio de Friends donde Chandler le regala este libro a Kathy; y me tomó nada menos que veinte años para leerlo pero el día finalmente llegó. El mejor día jamás.

Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.

-----------------------------------------------

Beautiful and deeply touching. At Meredith's wedding last year, her brother and sister read a passage from this book, including the below - an inspired choice.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

At what age does a child learn what is real? How long does the blurring between fantasy and reality persist, for a young child? And when harsh reality kicks in with a vengeance, isn’t a little bit of magic lost forever?

The loss of childhood innocence is always poignant. Adults sometimes continue to live in our imaginations and dreams through stories, so we may manage to hang on to a little bit of this magic through our adulthood.

The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real), is a much-loved classic book from 1922. The story speaks to children, especially the shy introverts or dreamers, who love the magic of it all. For adults, it may lift us back into the dreamy world of childhood, when anything is possible, and nothing is set in stone. It deals both with what is “real”, and also explores the world of the imagination, and possibilities beyond the literal truth. In some ways, it encourages the child to think about the bigger questions of life and the universe. And, as with all good fantasy, it poses the question, “What if?”

The author Margery Williams Bianco drew from her own experience to write The Velveteen Rabbit. She had been born in London, but her father died when she was seven years old, and the family went to America to live just two years later. She actually became a professional writer at 19, but she only started writing for children much later, when her own children had grown up.

After her early emigration to the United States, Margery lived in a rural Pennsylvania farming community. At nineteen she returned to London, to try to sell some of her work. Some of it was published, but none was very successful. While visiting her publisher, Margery Williams met Francesco Bianco, an Italian living in London, who was employed as the manager of one of the book departments. The two were married, and had two children.

Margery Williams Bianco had strong memories of her own early childhood, and of her father, a deeply loving and caring parent, who had encouraged both her and her older sister to read and use their imaginations. She recalled the way her father described characters from various books to capture her imagination, and tempt her with their amazing worlds within. Her strong desire to read soon developed into a need to write for herself, and she now realised these were both instilled in her at an early age by her father.

Margery Williams Bianco found that all the memories of the toys which had been such an important part of her life surged to the fore. At the age of 41, she wrote her first children’s novel The Velveteen Rabbit, realising that children’s lives are enriched by toys whose personalities they have created while playing with them.

The story tells of a stuffed rabbit, splendidly sewn from velveteen. A small boy finds him in his Christmas stocking and is enchanted with his new present, playing with nothing else for about two hours. But then the velveteen rabbit is forgotten, and put away to live in the toy cupboard, or abandoned on the nursery floor. The velveteen rabbit is quite shy though, and doesn’t really mind.

But because the rabbit is made of velveteen, some of the other toys snub him. They are modern and mechanical, and they think a toy rabbit made of velveteen is very old-fashioned. Even Timothy, a jointed wooden lion, looks down on him. However, there is a wise old toy in the nursery, a Skin Horse, who is kind to him. The velveteen rabbit is curious about what it means to be real, and whether these more expensive toys are more real than him. But the Skin Horse insists:

“Real isn’t how you are made … When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

The velveteen rabbit is very much in awe of this idea. He wants to know if it would hurt, or take very long to happen, but doubts whether it would happen to him for a long time.

“When you are real, you don’t mind being hurt,” said the wise Skin Horse.

One night, when Nana is bustling around tidying the nursery, she cannot find the boy’s favourite toy, a china dog, for him to take to bed with him. So she gives him the velveteen rabbit to sleep with, instead. The velveteen rabbit loves this time when he can snuggle down with the little boy, and grows to feel special. The little boy tells him about the tunnels that the real rabbits live in, and makes tunnels for him under the bedclothes.

The velveteen rabbit is very happy. He has become the little boy’s favourite toy.

“Spring came, and wherever the boy went, the rabbit went too.” He did not notice that his coat was getting shabby and worn away in places. Then the big moment came. Nana was sent out to look for the rabbit, who had accidentally been left outside after a picnic, and she was cross at all the fuss being made for a toy. But the little boy insisted the velveteen rabbit was not just a toy: “He’s REAL”.

When the rabbit heard this he was so proud, and felt so much love himself for the little boy, that he felt his heart would burst.

Time passed. In the summer, he came across some wild rabbits. He was fascinated by them, but realised that they could do much more than he could. They could run, and jump, and hop, and even dance! The velveteen rabbit tried to cover up the fact that he had no hind legs, but eventually the wild rabbits realised that he could not hop as they did, and he didn’t smell right at all. They decided that he was not a real rabbit, and ran away. The velveteen rabbit was so very sad. After all, he knew he was real!

The velveteen rabbit becomes older and even shabbier, but he is happy, because the boy still loves him. That is, until one day the boy becomes ill with scarlet fever, and the doctor says that the boy should be taken to the seaside to recover. But what of the velveteen rabbit? The doctor says he would be a mass of germs, and instructs Nana to put him outside and left out in the garden for the gardener to burn.

Overnight, the velveteen rabbit sadly reflects on his life. What is the use of being real, if it all ends like this? He cries, a real tear falling from his velvet nose, onto the ground. Then there is more magic. A beautiful flower appears where the tear fell, and a fairy steps out of the flower, to comfort the velveteen rabbit. She explains that she is the Nursery Magic Fairy, who takes care of all the playthings that the boy has loved, and turns them into “Real”. And then she says another marvellous thing.

Because the velveteen rabbit has become Real to the boy who truly loves him, she will make him become Real to everyone.

The fairy takes the rabbit to the forest, where the wild rabbits live, and gives the velveteen rabbit a kiss. Instantly he is changed into a real rabbit, although it takes a long time for him to realise this.

“He actually had hind legs! He gave one leap, and the joy of using those hind legs was so great, that he went springing about the turf.
He was a Real Rabbit at last!“

The next spring, when he is playing in the forest, the boy spots the rabbits, and especially notices one, who looked exactly like the velveteen rabbit who had got lost when he had scarlet fever. But he was not to know that this really was his own toy rabbit, whom he had helped to become Real.

This is a magical, wondrous story. What is it that makes something real in our minds? For an adult, many things are intangible, yet they are powerfully real. So it is for children. A velveteen rabbit is an object which can be touched, and seen, and played with. It is real in a physical sense. But also, it behaves as if it is real. The toy rabbit can breathe, he can cry, and he has emotions. He can become real in a different sense, when he is loved enough. But the story has a third level of reality in the story, when the toy becomes a flesh and blood rabbit.

“The mechanical toys, like the model train, were very stuck-up and boasted that they were real. But the Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed…”

This is a particularly nice picture edition of the story, from 2002. It is simply but elegantly told, and beautifully illustrated with naturalistic soft watercolours, by the award-winning duo, Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher. Steve Johnson is the illustrator, and Lou Fancher has adapted Margery Williams Bianco’s story for very young children, including much of her original text.

There have been many adaptations of this favourite book, both in print, and on film and stage. It remains her most popular work. Margery Williams Bianco’s writing is unique, combining the innocence, playfulness and imaginative ability of children, with her trademark undercurrents of sentimentality and sadness. Invariably her books end on an inspirational uplifting note. Perhaps it is this which made her so immediately successful.

Although for the remaining two decades of her life, she wrote many more books and short stories for children, all with similar themes, there are undercurrents of sadness. The stories are poignant, and a little melancholy, with themes of loss and death present in all her children’s books. Most of them display her preoccupation with toys coming to life and the ability of inanimate objects and animals to express human emotions and feelings. Margery Bianco Williams always maintained that we grow and learn greater humanity through pain and adversity. The Velveteen Rabbit also has this at its core. Yet it is perfectly balanced.

All such stories acquire a sort of magic through the child’s own experience, and their subsequent nostalgia. There is sadness in The Velveteen Rabbit, but in the end the reader ends feeling optimistic and uplifted.

5★ . . "Or How Toys Become Real"

"There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen."

He was the perfect Christmas gift for a little boy who actually had a china dog he used to take to bed every night. The Rabbit was overlooked in the toy cupboard, snubbed by the other toys except for a threadbare, old "skin horse".

The Velveteen Rabbit in the toy cupboard with the Skin Horse

The Skin Horse explains that that love can make toys real. (Not a spoiler, it's the subtitle!) One night, Nana can't find the china dog, but she spots the little Rabbit. The boy clutches him happily as he goes to sleep, and from then on they are inseparable.

The boy plays with the little Rabbit everywhere and digs pretend rabbit burrows in the garden for him to hide in. One day, the little Rabbit discovers REAL rabbits!

The Velveteen Rabbit meets two real rabbits.

They poke terrible fun at him because he isn't real.

"'Can you hop on your hind legs?' asked the furry rabbit.

That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs at all ! The back of him was made all in one piece, like a pincushion.

He sat still in the bracken, and hoped that the other rabbits wouldn't notice.

'I don't want to!' he said again.

But the wild rabbits have very sharp eyes. And this one stretched out his neck and looked.

'He hasn't got any hind legs!' he called out.

'Fancy a rabbit without any hind legs !' And he began to laugh."

Poor little chap. But his boy declares that Bunny is real, so that should mean something. But then, horror of horrors, his boy becomes so ill with scarlet fever, that when he's well again, all of his toys and bedding must be burned - including . . . gulp, the little Rabbit, who is looking decidedly grotty and worse for wear. The boy is so excited about a promised trip to the seaside for the fresh air, that he doesn't notice.

But wait! This story hasn't been a firm favourite since 1922 for no reason. Just before the gardener is going to set fire to the sack, the little Rabbit wriggles out of the top and thinks.

"He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground, a mysterious flower, not at all like any that grew in the garden."

"'I am the nursery magic Fairy,' she said. 'I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real.'

'Wasn't I Real before? '

'You were Real to the Boy,' the Fairy said, 'because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one.'

I don't care that this may owe something to Pinocchio, which was written in 1883, or that Toy Story probably owes a lot to both. I'm just delighted to have enjoyed it again because I was reminded of it recently and saw it wasn't on my Goodreads shelves.

I found a copy of the 1922 publication, from which I've copied illustrations, just to show where it started, but there are countless newer editions with more modern artwork that would probably appeal more to today's children (and parents and grandparents). But I thought I'd share the old art here.

It's as heart-warming as ever, and I love thinking that the old family toys might be frolicking around somewhere in another dimension (not this one - they'd be too old by now).

The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real by Margery Williams Bianco (1881-1944) was originally published in 1922 when she was 41 years old.

Tonight is my first time to read this book. Shame on me. It only took 15 mins to read it and at first I was totally not impressed. I thought I already saw the theme of previously-cherished toys being discarded either in favor of a newer or more hi-tech toy or when the child becomes an adult used in Disney/Pixar's movie Toy Story. I also thought I already read about the realization of growing old or passing of time used poignantly in E. B. White's Charlotte's Web. However, check the years. Toy Story 1 was shown in 1995 and Charlotte's Web was first published in 1952. Hence, unless there were other children's books with the same themes earlier than 1922, The Velveteen Rabbit was the original.

The story is very simple yet it strikes a chord in one's heart. It is about a stuff rabbit toy given to a boy on Christmas Day. Along with other hi-tech and shiny gifts, the little rabbit toy is not a big hit so he is kept in the boy's cabinet. One of them is an old wooden horse who tells the little rabbit that the latter can become real only when he is loved. One night, the boy's nanny cannot find her ward's bed companion toy so she gets the little rabbit. They seem to click so from then on, the boy sleeps with the little rabbit and brings him anywhere he goes. Being a stuff toy, the little rabbit has wear and tear: his color is fading, his hay-filled body is becoming out of shape, he is starting to lose his whiskers, etc. Despite those, the boy still loves him and this makes the little rabbit very happy. However, the boy gets sick with scarlet fever and the doctor orders the boy's parents to burn all his toys.

If you check Wikipedia, the vaccine for scarlet fever was only discovered in 1924 (two years after the first publication of Velveteen. Then in 1940, the vaccine was eclipsed by the discovery of penicillin. So, the burning of the toys in 1922 was a sensible order from the doctor.

I am not saying though that this book is better than J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1902) or Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Le Petite Prince (1945) or even A. A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh (1926). These three novels are far more comprehensive, multi-layered, imaginative and their characters are more memorable. However, the simplicity of The Velveteen Rabbit is its most endearing asset. The vulnerable and trusting little rabbit is much more endearing than the cockiness of Peter, the wisdom of the Little Prince and the cluelessness of Winnie.

To my brother who always likes to check if a novel has an allusion to sex, check this book out. The little rabbit is told that being worn out is the consequence of being loved. It does not matter if the little rabbit, because the boy loves him, later becomes out of shape, with faded color, loses its luster, with missing whiskers, etc because he is loved by the boy. Maybe Williams anticipated readers like my brother so she made both characters, the boy and the rabbit, as male ha ha.

This review was written months ago. A mix of Christmas, children, family, presents and literature brought it to the surface.
Dec 19, 18

After watching another Friends marathon I noticed that The Velveteen Rabbit was mentioned twice. First, in a 1997 episode, "The One with the Dirty Girl" and four years later in "The One with the Halloween Party" since it was Chandler’s favorite childhood book. (That's not how a geek sounds.)

I wrote on some review that I wasn’t particularly fond of rabbits. When I read the The Book of Bunny Suicides, I think - that was fun. I had a couple of them as a kid and kept them at a safe distance.
Brownish rabbits look more innocuous. I like the concept of white, fluffy, little creatures until they look at me with those disturbing eyes filled with blood.

Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.

Feb 03, 18
* Also on my blog.
** Photo credit: True albino via Flickr
Illustration by William Nicholson for The Velveteen Rabbit

A simple but profound story of how one small toy velveteen rabbit becomes "real" (through so-called nursery magic and because the velveteen rabbit is perceived as being real by the young boy who sleeps with it every night and plays with it every day), but I do have to admit that I am actually more than a bit glad I did NOT encounter Margery Williams Bianco's classic as a very young child (for I did indeed and very much akin to the Boy own a stuffed rabbit toy that was in many ways exactly the same kind of constant companion as is featured in the Velveteen Rabbit and quite frankly, I am rather sure I would have majorly and totally out at the scene where the doctor orders all of the Boy's books and toys, including his velveteen rabbit, to be burned because of the scarlet fever infection risk, with the fact of the physician more than likely being right with regard to the need to sanitise and disinfect the Boy's bedroom, including getting rid of certain very much contaminated and germ-ridden toys and books quite notwithstanding).

And also, really, and with my apologies to those of you who consider

And indeed to and for me, the ending of