When the Velveteen Rabbit first arrives in the nursery, he is snubbed by the other toys. But the Rabbit soon makes friends with the Skin Horse, who explains how toys can become "real" if they are loved enough. The Velveteen Rabbit longs for this to happen, and one day he finds that he has become the Boy's very favorite toy. They play together through a long, golden summer, Rabbit becoming shabbier and shabbier as he becomes real to the boy who loves him. The rabbits in the garden think otherwise -- how can Rabbit be real when he can't leap and hop? When Boy takes ill with scarlet fever and Rabbit must be discarded, a magical fairy appears to transform him into a real, wild rabbit, though her parting words remind him that he was always real to the Boy.

really loved this as a child

Meanwhile, back in my umpteenth childhood, another book I read for the first time...

This beautiful, classic children's story about a boy and his toy rabbit, who becomes Real, is sweet, sad, and magical. ( )

#564 in our old book database. Not rated. Jan. 19, 1990. ( )

#564 in our old book database. Not rated. Jan. 19, 1990.

I recall that I didn't much like this book the first time I read it decades ago, but I decided to give it another go when the 100th Anniversary edition turned up on NPR's list of best children's books of 2022 that I'm reading as one of my 2023 goals.

The art for this edition is by Erin Stead, and overall I do prefer her style over the art by William Nicholson in the edition that my family owns, but the muted colors and droopy characters radiate moroseness from the get-go and throughout the tale. And while her rabbit is fine, as drawn it doesn't really match the description in the text as to the stuffed animal's form and really doesn't look much different from its first appearance to its supposedly worn look near the end of the story.

The story and its mythology really irritate me, and I ranted to my wife for quite awhile last night after we read the book together. Here's a taste of it. For starters, I'm torn between the Skin Horse being a false prophet of a faux religion of Real created to distract from the actual revelations of the tale's end, or the Skin Horse being John the Baptist to the Velveteen Rabbit's Christ who is risen again to immortality and finally opening the way for all toys to Heaven on Earth. And if there are two levels of Real, are there more? Say, fifteen, perhaps, as in Scientology? Will the Velveteen Rabbit continue to transcend as he tires of immortality on Earth? Will watching all the real rabbits in his life die every nine years as he goes on and on without the sweet release of death push him to a new epiphany of Real (Level 3)? Or will another random fairy/angel just pop up in time to move the story/pilgrimage along? Meanwhile, what about China Dog, the boy's first beloved toy? Did he achieve either level of Real or is he stuck in some limbo? What sins weigh down the soul of the Skin Horse that he is denied the second level of Real? What inherent evil of the modern age prevents mechanical toys from being able to enter the realm of Real? Is Williams a Luddite or simply unable to progress due to crippling obsession with nostalgia?

Or is this all just an attempt to create a parent cover story for throwing away kids' toys? The family pet goes off to live on "a farm in the country" and all the missing toys are now frolicking in the forest with the real animals.

Anyhow, I still don't like this book.

(Another project! I'm trying to read all the picture books and graphic novels on the kids section of NPR's Books We Love 2022.) ( )