The Velveteen Rabbit

By
Margery Williams
  Copyright 1922

 The Velveteen Rabbit is a children’s story that is perfect for bedtime reading.  It is a story that can be read over and over to your children, and then to your grandchildren.  Many lessons about life are revealed which not only touch a child’s heart, but also the heart of a caring adult.

Margery Williams was born in England in 1881, came of age in America, and then returned to England at the turn of the Twentieth century to work as a professional writer.  Soon after she married an Italian, Francisco Bianco, had two children, and in 1907 moved to Italy.  Her husband had to fight in World War I.  Because she had retained her American citizenship her family was able to leave the devastation of Europe for the States in 1918.  It was from the backdrop of all this that in 1922 Margery Williams Bianco wrote the melancholy story The Velveteen Rabbit.

The storyline of The Velveteen Rabbit is a simple one.  A small boy gets a sawdust-stuffed Velveteen Rabbit in his Christmas stocking, but the more technical toys he receives as presents take priority.  Lonely in the nursery and looked down upon by the other toys, the Skin Horse tells the Velveteen Rabbit about nursery magic.  The Velveteen Rabbit asks the old and wise and experienced Skin Horse “What is real?”  This sets up the plot of the book, for the answer is you become real when someone really loves you.

Providence arranges for the Velveteen Rabbit to be the little boy’s sleeping companion.  The little boy learns to love his Velveteen Rabbit.  After seasons of play together the nanny becomes critical of the Velveteen Rabbit’s now shabby appearance and calls it just a toy.  The little boy sticks up for his friend and tells her she mustn’t say that because “he’s real!“.  At the moment the nursery magic happened and the Velveteen rabbit knew what is was like to be real.  This took place in the Summer.

Also that summer the Velveteen Rabbit encounters some real rabbits and wishes he could run and dance and play like they were able to.  But later in the year the little boy falls deathly sick with scarlet fever.  The Velveteen Rabbit is his constant companion and comforts him the best he can and their bond becomes even closer.

When the fever finally breaks and the boy is able to get out of bed, it is decided he should go to the seaside for his health to grow stronger.  The Velveteen Rabbit was very excited about this prospect of visiting the seaside, that is until the doctor ordered the Velveteen Rabbit and all the nursery toys to be burned in order to disinfect the house from germs. 

During the night while awaiting the morning bonfire, the Velveteen rabbit shed a real tear, and as the tear hit the ground, a flower grew up and out of the flower came the Nursery Magic Fairy.  She explains to the Velveteen Rabbit he was real only to the little boy, but now he would become really real.  She then takes him to the woods where the rabbits were playing he had met that summer.  The Velveteen rabbit was so happy when he found that he could now run and dance and play just like they did.  The following Spring the boy sees the rabbits, and one of them reminds him of his Velveteen Rabbit but he didn’t know that it really was.

Margery Williams writing is wonderful.  Her story makes one realize it is in loving others and in others loving us that we become real and find true meaning in life.  Yes, a simple story “How Toys Become Real”, yet a great moral lesson in life.

A video recording of The Velveteen Rabbit was made in 1985 narrated by Meryl Streep.  The music by George Winston was nominated for a Grammy award.

If you have children, and if you love bunny rabbits, you must own a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, or you can download it for free at The Velveteen Rabbit .