The Wisdom of the Velveteen Rabbit for Everyone

The Velveteen Rabbit

The Rabbit was new to the nursery and arrived as a Christmas gift for the Boy. The Boy played with the Rabbit for a few hours, but later grew tired of him and played with the other toys instead. The Rabbit began to feel sad and discarded.

There were many other toys in the nursery with which the Boy played. There were the mechanical toys, soft toys and even a Skin horse. Notice I use a capital letter for the Skin horse for he is a key character. When the Boy was asleep the toys in the nursery all became alive and talked to each other about their feelings and the past day.

The Rabbit who was feeling very sad for himself confided in the Skin horse, who was rather tatty in his appearance. All his hair had gone and his mane and tail were very thin:

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others.  He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and –by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For the nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the skin Horse understand all about it.

The Skin horse told the Rabbit about the magic of the nursery.  The Boy’s father had made him Real because the Boy’s father had loved him, really loved him.

But just then the Rabbit came up with a stabbing question:

“What is Real? “

The skin horse whinnied and replied:

“Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves 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?

The Skin horse’s answer to this was that you become Real gradually over many years and that by the time you are Real all your hair has disappeared, and that you become loose in the joints and that you look very shabby. But that once you are REAL you can never be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

The story of the velveteen rabbit is how the little Rabbit becomes Real. He is first loved by the Boy. They sleep together and the boy hugs him so often he begins to lose some of his hair.

The little Rabbit is embarrassed one day when he discovers that he is different from the rabbits in the woodland. He has to hide his hind legs from them when they insist that he should jump for them.

The Boy later becomes ill with fever, and the Rabbit becomes his favourite toy and is beside the Boy as he recovers. But when he recovers and because of the danger of germs the Rabbit is removed and discarded by his Carer. There are the lonely days behind the fowl-house and in the wood.

But one day he is visited by the Fairy of the Nursery and experiences the magic of becoming Real, not just to the Boy, but to everyone.

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and Illustrated by Michael Hague was first published in 1922. The illustrations with Michael Hague appeared in Great Britain in 1983 and has been reprinted ever since. Every parent and grandparent and every adult should delight in reading it to young children. The book can be sought online.

The Themes of the Velveteen Rabbit

The magic of acceptance and the power of love

Love hurts and hardships are a part of life

Acknowledge the mentors of your past

Discovering the true self

Wisdom comes with age and the ability to be authentic

Transformation and Resurrection

• Poem for Grandchildren living far away
• Reflection on the Conversion of St Paul
• Reflection on the Sower
• The Mustard Seed Prose Poem
• Report on the launch of my poetry book, The Dance of Life