The Velveteen Rabbit

by Margery Williams Bianco, Mint Editions (Contribution by)

Overview

The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) is a children’s book by Margery Williams Bianco. Illustrated by renowned British painter William Nicholson, The Velveteen Rabbit has endured as a children’s classic for nearly a century. Adapted numerous times for film and television, Bianco’s heartwarming story is beloved for its universal and timeless morals by children and adults alike.

Gifted to a young boy on Christmas day, the velveteen rabbit is soon cast aside for modern, mechanical toys. Left in the nursery, the rabbit meets the wise old Skin Horse, a toy passed down to the boy from his uncle. The Skin Horse tells the rabbit how, when treated with love by their owners, toys are magically granted life. Initially hopeful, the rabbit soon despairs of its lonely stay in the nursery, and longs for a life in the world outside. When the boy’s nanny comes looking for a toy for the boy to sleep with, however, the velveteen rabbit is given a chance to live. The boy soon grows found of the rabbit, taking the toy with him on picnics and trips to the garden, where the velveteen rabbit meets real rabbits and longs even more to join them. When the boy is struck with scarlet fever, however, the doctor orders that all of his belongings must be disinfected or burned, and the velveteen rabbit is placed in a sack and left in the garden overnight. As the rabbit begins to cry, the magic of love begins its work, ensuring the rabbit will not only live, but embark on a wonderful adventure of its own.

This edition of Margery Williams Bianco’s The Velveteen Rabbit is a classic of children’s fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781513271859
Publisher:	Mint Editions
Publication date:	03/24/2021
Series:	Mint Editions (The Children's Library)
Pages:	18
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	8 - 13 Years

About the Author

Margery Williams Bianco (1881-1944) was an English American children’s book writer. Born in London, she was encouraged to read from a young age by her father, a barrister and classics scholar. In 1890, following her father’s untimely death, Williams and her sister moved with their mother Pennsylvania, where Margery was enrolled at the Covent School in Sharon Hill. Marked by her father’s death, however, and by his encouragement of her literary and creative interests, Margery returned to London in 1901 to embark on a career as a professional writer. She published her first novel, The Late Returning, in 1902, and though it failed commercially she was encouraged to write and publish several more works of fiction. After meeting him through her publisher, Margery married Francesco Bianco in 1904, and the two had a son and a daughter. The family moved from England to Paris before settling in Turin, Italy, where Francesco joined the Italian Army to fight in the First World War. During this difficult time, Margery found solace in the works of English writer Walter de la Mare, who would inspire much of her work to come. In 1921, Margery and Francesco moved their family to Greenwich Village, where their daughter Pamela, a child prodigy, excelled as a painter. In 1922, inspired by de le Mare’s works, Bianco published her most famous book, The Velveteen Rabbit. Recognized as a classic work of children’s literature, it has been adapted numerous times for radio, theatre, film, and television. In 1937, Bianco was awarded a Newbery Medal for her book Winterbound.

Read an Excerpt

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you 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?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. 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."

Editorial Reviews

Lou Fancher sensitively adapts Margery Williams's The Velveteen Rabbit, illus. by Steve Johnson and Fancher, while maintaining the magic of the original. The inviting oil paintings ingeniously portray the boy's toy rabbit with button eyes, shaped like those of the real rabbits living in the nearby woods; as the stuffed rabbit is transformed by love, the artists seem to inject animation into its eyes, depicting its metamorphosis into a living, breathing being.

Publishers Weekly

Hague's warm paintings give a soft sheen to Williams's classic story. Ages 5-10. (May) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

PreS-Gr 2-Fancher's adaptation of Margery Williams's classic story sings with the magic of the original, while offering a shorter, more accessible version for modern children. The oil paintings have a luminous quality, the rich colors playing with dark and light to produce a timeless feel, perfectly complementing the text. The details of the boy's room, his toys, his Nana-all exist in an enchanted place somewhere between the past and the present. At last librarians have something to give parents who want to share the story of the toy that became real with their children, but are dismayed to find the original tale longer than they had remembered. An ideal adaptation of an old favorite.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

In his note to the reader, Fancher (The Range Eternal, p. 1222, etc.) writes, "I’ve shortened the text to allow more room for the artwork," as an explanation for this abbreviated version of the beloved classic. Shortened indeed: Williams’s poetic passage introducing the Skin Horse has been reduced to: "The Skin Horse was old and wise, and he knew all about being Real." The rest is pared down to match, leaving a tale that does still—faintly—echo the original’s lyricism, but is less likely to lose the attention of, as Fancher puts it, "a wiggly two-year-old" being forced to listen to it. The art is, as promised, all full-paged and space-filling: quiet compositions in which the Velveteen Rabbit, the Boy, and other figures are large, soft-surfaced forms, viewed close-up, and from a child’s-eye level to enhance the feeling of intimacy. The tale’s more philosophical aspects will still elude most of the nursery school set, but sharing this summary may make some listeners more receptive to the Real story, when they’re old enough to appreciate it. On the other hand, perhaps they’ll think they’ve read it already. Why not just wait? (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews