Name : Affif Fathin Irawan

NIM : 210611005

The Velveteen Rabbit

A soft and fluffy Velveteen Rabbit lived in a toybox in a Boy's room. Each day, the Boy
opened the toybox and picked up Velveteen Rabbit. And Velveteen Rabbit was happy.
Then newer, brighter toys came into the toybox. They had special tricks. Some could move
when the Boy pushed a button. Others bounced high.
Velveteen Rabbit had no special tricks or buttons. No wonder the Boy started to choose these
other new toys.
At night, when the toys were back all in the toy box, the other toys talked with pride about
the fine things they could do. Velveteen Rabbit was quiet. There was not much to say.
Only one other toy in the toy box was like Velveteen Rabbit. Cowboy Horse was also a soft,
fluffy toy. But he was old. Most of his hair was worn away. He had only one eye left.
Cowboy Horse said to Velveteen Rabbit, “Soft toys like us are really the lucky ones. We get
loved the most. And when soft toys get loved and loved, we can become Real.”
“What is Real?” said Velveteen Rabbit.
“Being Real is the best," said Skin Horse. "You can move when you want to move. When
you are Real, if you are loved, you can show your love back.”
One day Nana, who took care of the Boy, flew open the lid of the toy box. She said in a busy
tone, “Oh, dear! That walking doggie is missing. I must find something else for the Boy!” In
a second, Velveteen Rabbit was plopped down onto the bed with the Boy.
This began another happy time for Velveteen Rabbit. Each night the Boy would hold
Velveteen Rabbit close in his arms. In the morning, the Boy would show Velveteen Rabbit
how to make rabbit holes under the sheets. If the Boy went outside to a picnic, or to the park,
Velveteen Rabbit would come with him, too.
After awhile, with the hugging and holding, much of Velveteen Rabbit’s fur got matted
down. Its pink nose grew less pink with all the Boy’s kisses. But Velveteen Rabbit did not
care. It was happy.
One day the Boy became sick. His forehead got very hot. The doctor came and went. Nana
walked back and forth in fear. Day after day, the Boy stayed in bed. There was nothing for
Velveteen Rabbit to do but to stay in bed, too, day after day.
Then at last, the Boy got better. Such joy in the house! The doctor said the Boy must go to
the shore. How wonderful! thought Velveteen Rabbit. Many times the Boy had talked
happily about the shore, and told of its white sands and big blue ocean.
“What about this old bunny?” Nana asked the doctor.
“That old thing?” said the doctor. “It’s full of scarlet fever germs. Burn it at once! Get him
a new bunny.”
So Velveteen Rabbit was thrown into a sack along with the Boy's bed sheets and old clothes
and a lot of junk. The sack was carried to the backyard. The gardener was told to burn the
whole thing.
But the gardener was too busy with picking the beans and peas before nightfall, so he left the
sack behind. “I will take care of it tomorrow,” he said. The sack was not tied at the top, and
Velveteen Rabbit fell out. The next day when the gardener picked up the sack to take it away
to be burned, Velveteen Rabbit was not in it.
Then it started to rain. Velveteen Rabbit was sad. So far away from the Boy, never again to
be nice and cozy together, and now soaking wet! A tear fell from Velveteen Rabbit’s eye,
over his cheek. It plopped onto the grass.
All at once, at the spot where the tear fell, a flower grew up. Then the bud of the flower
opened. A tiny Fairy!
“Little Rabbit,” said the Fairy. “Do you know who I am?”
“I wish I did,” said Velveteen Rabbit.
“I am the Fairy that takes care of toys that are well loved,” said the Fairy.
By then, Velveteen Rabbit was shabby and gray. The boy had loved off all of its
whiskers. The pink lining in the ears had long turned grey. Its brown spots, once fresh and
bright, were now faded and hard to see.
“It is time now for me to make you Real,” said the Fairy.
“I think I remember Real,” said Velveteen Rabbit. Now, what was it Cowboy Horse had
said? Ah yes. When you are Real, you can move when you want to move. If you are loved,
you can love back.
With one touch of the Fairy’s wand, Velveteen Rabbit felt different. Tickly. All of a sudden,
each one of its two legs sewn together tight, could move!
A fly landed on Velveteen Rabbit’s head and it was itchy. As quick as a wink, that foot was
up at the Velveteen Rabbit’s head to scratch it off.
“So this is being Real"! “I can move when I want to move!”
“I will show you some new friends,” said the Fairy. And the Fairy took Velveteen Rabbit
where several rabbits ran and hopped about. Soon they were all great friends.
Time went by. The Boy was back from the shore. He was all better now.
One day, the Boy went to the backyard to play. From the trees nearby, a few rabbits hopped
out. One rabbit was brown all over, and another one was all white. A third rabbit had brown
spots, most of them faded. That one hopped the closest to the Boy.
The Boy thought, "Why, this rabbit looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I was
sick. I loved that Bunny!"
What he didn't know was that it was his very own Bunny, come back to see the boy. For he
was the reason the Velveteen Rabbit had become Real.

Review

The Velveteen Rabbit is given to a boy as a Christmas gift. The other toys in the boy’s nursery
pretended to be “Real,” so the Velveteen Rabbit became curious about what that was. The
Skin Horse explained “Real” is what happens when a child loves a toy until it becomes old
and shabby. For those of us, adults, who grew up watching Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, the plot
sounds familiar: a normally inanimate object wants to become real.

This is an imaginative children’s story about how toys become real. As an adult, I enjoyed the
story, but parents may want to test the story out on their children by borrowing the book from
the library first before buying it. I read the printed version of this book a year ago to a then six-
year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. This book did not capture their attention. The printed
version of the book has very few illustrations. Those illustrations were not brightly colored.
The design of those illustrations are dull and mature, not something young children would be
excited to look at. The story has more words than the brightly colored picture books I
normally read to these two children, so they easily became fidgety, distracted, and ultimately
fell asleep on it. Although this is an enjoyable book by adult standards, the real test is whether
children think this story is enjoyable and worth their trying to read on their own. My two test
subjects were not impressed due to too many words in the story and lack of colorful pictures.

Perhaps, my test subjects were just too young and immature to appreciate The Velveteen
Rabbit. I know this book is familiar to teachers who may eventually read this story to their
students during story time or assign this story to their students to read in class or at home. As a
parent or guardian, the whole point of reading to children is to prepare them for school or give
them a competitive edge in school by exposing them to knowledge and literature at home.
Unfortunately, the only thing this book is successful at is putting a six-year-old and a four-
year-old to sleep. Perhaps, The Velveteen Rabbit is best read to children as a bedtime story.

Another possibility is that The Velveteen Rabbit is no longer culturally relevant for the time
young children live in now. Consider this. Is your child or children playing with plush animals
and pretending they can talk? Or, is your child or children playing video games on your cell
phone or a computer tablet or watching children play with toys on YouTube videos? This
book was originally published in 1922. Some toys and media that children are exposed to now
were not in existence then, for example, video games and internet videos. Are electronic
games and media industries taking away our children’s imagination? Or, is classic literature
like The Velveteen Rabbit simply out of style due to changes in our culture, society, and
technology?

Summary

The Velveteen Rabbit is a 1922 children’s book by Margery Williams. As the book begins,
a young boy receives a plush toy rabbit in his stocking for Christmas. Though he is initially
excited about the rabbit, he soon puts it in the toy box with the rest of his toys. The nursery
is populated by a variety of toys that talk and interact when the people aren’t around.

Some of the other toys in the nursery are mechanical and have moving parts. They like to
pretend that they are real, treating the Velveteen Rabbit dismissively since he is just a
stuffed animal with sawdust for filling. However, the wise old Skin Horse takes the
Velveteen Rabbit under its wing.

The Skin Horse, who has been in the nursery longer than any of the other toys, has gained a
lot of knowledge in that time. He tells the Velveteen Rabbit that having moving parts
doesn’t make a toy real. Mechanical parts can break, and once they do, the toy will be
thrown out with the trash. The Skin Horse has seen many mechanical toys come and go
from the nursery over the years.

The Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that if a child loves a toy and plays with it for a long time
until the toy is nearly worn out, then that toy becomes real. Looking worn and shabby from
being played with by generations of children, the Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that it is worth
it to become worn out as long as the children have fun. The process of becoming real is a
long one, which is why the mechanical toys that break easily can’t achieve it. The Skin
Horse is real. The Boy’s uncle loved him so much that he became real, and now he can
never become a toy again, no matter how much his current owner might ignore him. The
Rabbit doesn’t want to get worn out, but it does like the idea of becoming a real rabbit.

Nana, the woman who helps keep the nursery, gives the Velveteen Rabbit to the Boy one
night so he can sleep with it. After that, the Velveteen Rabbit is a great favorite of his. The
Boy plays with the Rabbit, carrying it around all the time until the Rabbit’s fur begins to
rub off and its seams start to come apart in places. One night, the Boy leaves the Rabbit
outside accidentally. He insists that Nana retrieve the Rabbit from the garden, claiming that
he is not a toy, he is real. The Rabbit is overjoyed to hear that the Boy thinks he’s real.

In the spring, the Boy takes the Velveteen Rabbit outside to play. A group of real rabbits
approaches him, wanting to play, but the Velveteen Rabbit cannot move because he is only
a toy. The rabbits tease the Velveteen Rabbit, who insists that he is real until the Boy comes
back and frightens the wild rabbits away.

Over time, the Rabbit looks more and more ragged. Adults comment often on how old and
ragged he is looking, but the Rabbit doesn’t mind how he looks, and the Boy doesn’t
notice.

One day, the Boy becomes sick with a bad fever. He is confined to bed, and the Velveteen
Rabbit stays with him the entire time. Eventually, the boy gets better, but the doctor
declares that all the toys and books he played with while he was ill need to be burned to
keep them from spreading scarlet fever germs. This includes the Velveteen Rabbit, whom
the doctor declares is a hotbed of germs. The Rabbit is placed in a sack with the other toys
and taken to the incinerator. The Boy is given a new stuffed rabbit to replace the old one.

The Rabbit wonders what good being real is if he just gets burned anyway. He cries one
real tear, and where it lands, a flower grows and Fairy emerges from it. The Nursery Fairy
takes care of all the toys that were loved once and then discarded. She takes the Rabbit into
the forest and leaves him with a group of wild rabbits. At first, the Velveteen Rabbit
doesn’t move so that the wild rabbits won’t find out that he is a toy, but eventually, he
does; he realizes the Fairy has transformed him into a living rabbit.

One day, the Boy sees a pair of rabbits playing in the garden near his home. He thinks that
one looks a lot like the toy he lost after he had scarlet fever. The Velveteen Rabbit has
returned to get one last look at the Boy.

Since its initial publication, The Velveteen Rabbit has been adapted many times. It has
received a number of awards, most notably, the IRA/CBC Children's Choice award, and
named one of the Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children by the National Education
Association. More than a dozen film and TV versions of the book have been produced. The
first of these was the 1973 LSB Production’s award-winning animated short film. In 2015,
a stage musical version was also produced by the Atlantic Theater Company.