The Velveteen Rabbit And Why Books Live Forever

Thoughts on timeless writing inspired by a century old classic

When Margery Williams started writing, she just wanted to earn enough to pay her bills. She submitted her first novel to a publisher in 1901. It didn’t sell well. Neither did her second, or third. Velveteen Rabbit was her fifth book.

A little boy gets a velveteen rabbit for Christmas. He plays with it for a few minutes, and throws it in a corner, forgotten. Sad and lonely, the rabbit watches the boy play with toys that wind up and move and wonders how to become real. The oldest toy in the playroom explains that real isn’t how you’re made. Love makes you real.

One restless night, the boy’s Nana puts rabbit in his arms. They are inseparable, go everywhere together. One day, even outside where real bunnies laugh at him and tell him he’s not real. Can’t even hop. Skin horse has comforting words again. It doesn’t happen all at once, he explains…

The boy gets Scarlet Fever and rabbit loves and comforts him until he’s well. By then, he is loose in the joints and shabby. But he doesn’t mind, because the boy called him real. Except the doctor said everything must be burned to avoid contamination and rabbit is tossed out on the burning heap. What was the point, he wonders, if this is how it all ends. And a real tear trickles down his shabby little nose…

122 years later, the book has over 9,000 reviews on Amazon and solid 5-star rating. It has never gone out of print and has sold over a million copies in the USA alone.

When the tear falls from rabbit’s eye, a flower emerges from the ground where the tear fell. The flower opens and out pops a fairy who kisses rabbit on the nose and turns him into a real bunny. The next spring, the boy is playing outside when he sees a wild rabbit that looks remarkably like the bunny he lost when he had scarlet fever.

The rabbit looks at the boy. The boy looks at the rabbit. And in that instant, they both know that loving is what elevates us. It’s the same story as The Little Prince, Charlotte’s Web, The Giving Tree and many more beloved classics. Because there is no story like a true story. Even when it’s fiction.

The new anniversary edition was illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Erin Stead. She says the book endures because it appeals to both children and grownups.

“The notion of ‘what's real’ carries with you for the rest of your life” she says.

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