“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.”

-Margery Williams Bianco ( The Velveteen Rabbit).

This book was possibly the very reason I as a child had an extreme physical attachment to material objects. The child loved his toy rabbit so much he made it come to life through sheer will.

I always considered my toys valuable objects. Where other children cast aside toy after toy I would not allow my Mother to throw even one away. I remember losing a small stuffed pony in a shopping centre and I was completely devastated. So much so that the feeling of distress is still etched in my mind. The panic of losing something I possessed, material though it was, made me completely crazy. It was replaced straight away with a small Cabbage Patch Doll figurine, but this was not equal to what I lost. The guilt of losing that toy could not be easily dissolved.

Now, as I revisit The Velveteen Rabbit, I realise how much I loved this story and how important the message was. A boy has a single toy that he puts all his love into. When he contracts scarlet fever the adults insist the toy must be burnt so as not to carry the infection. The rabbit is sadly cast aside in what is perhaps the lowest part of the story but is later saved!

He becomes real, real because he was once so loved by this child. That love carries through the story to the very end where despite the boy having moved on from his old toy rabbit, he doesn’t forget him. This is cemented in the story when he glimpses who he thinks is his old velveteen rabbit roaming freely in the wild.

It is such a lovely story in that it shows that no matter how old we get, the things we care for and  that sense of imagination and youth are always with us. This is despite developmental transition and life changes.

I loved this book so much I bought it for Sophie, my partner’s niece when she was born. I only hope she grows to love this story also.