The Velveteen Rabbit: 100th Anniversary Edition

by Margery Williams (Illustrator), Erin Stead (Illustrator)

Overview

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Velveteen Rabbit with a stunning edition of the timeless classic, with illustrations by Erin Stead, Caldecott Medal winner of A Sick Day for Amos McGee.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR

A cherished, 100-year-old classic feels entirely fresh again with breathtaking art by Caldecott Medal winner Erin Stead, who has cited this story as an influence on her acclaimed career.

With the full, original story from the 1922 classic, this deluxe, collectable edition of The Velveteen Rabbit is the go-to gift for baby showers, birthdays, weddings, and holidays throughout the year.

At first a brand-new toy, now a threadbare and discarded nursery relic, the velveteen rabbit is saved from peril by a magic fairy who whisks him away to the idyllic world of Rabbitland. There, he becomes "Real," a cherished childhood companion who will be loved for eternity. Treasured for generations, and given new life from one of today's most exciting children's book creators, here is a timeless tale about the magic of boundless love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593382127
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	04/12/2022
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 10.31(h) x 0.38(d)
Lexile:	1050L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

MARGERY WILLIAMS was born in London in 1881 and first came to the United States at the age of nine. For the rest of her life, she lived alternately in England and America. Her first novel was published when she was twenty-one, but she turned to writing for children in 1922 with the publication by Doubleday of The Velveteen Rabbit, the first and best-known of her thirty books for young people. Toward the end of her life, she lived in Greenwich Village, New York. She died there in 1944. 

ERIN STEAD is the illustrator of the Caldecott Medal-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee and its sequel, Amos McGee Misses the Bus, and the New York Times bestseller The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine. Her other acclaimed picture books include: Tony; And Then It's Spring; Bear Has a Story to Tell; Lenny & Lucy; If You Want to See a Whale; The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles; and Music for Mr. Moon. She lives in Michigan with her husband, author/illustrator Philip Stead. Visit Erin online at erinstead.com.

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

An NPR Best Book of the Year 2022

★ "Will entice a new generation of children to read or listen to the classic tale. . . . A beautiful, appealing update of this ageless story."—Booklist, starred review

"For this 100th-anniversary edition, Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Erin Stead took her turn, reimagining what it means to become real with lush, emotional illustrations that are guaranteed to pull at your heartstrings." —NPR

"Will continue to beguile young readers for generations to come." —Wall Street Journal

"Stead’s delicate woodblock print and pencil illustrations . . . match the ­lovely old-fashioned quality of the tale. . . . Living in such uncertain times, modern children have grown ­accustomed to seeing hardships reflected in their books; this is a sweet and loving break from that, and a beautiful story as well." —School Library Journal
 

From the Publisher

05/01/2022

PreS-Gr 2—First published in 1922, Williams's tale gives children a taste of the longer picture books that were once the norm but with all new illustrations. Stead's delicate woodblock print and pencil illustrations—listed and numbered in the front—match the lovely old-fashioned quality of the tale. For anyone unfamiliar with the original, it is a story of the relationship between a boy and a stuffed toy that becomes "real" by virtue of the fact that it is well loved by the child and essential to his growth and imagination. When the boy recovers from a bout of scarlet fever, the beloved rabbit is thought to be a source of infection and destined for the trash. But magic intervenes at the end, transforming the toy into a real rabbit just as the boy is presumably ready to leave childhood behind. VERDICT Living in such uncertain times, modern children have grown accustomed to seeing hardships reflected in their books; this is a sweet and loving break from that, and a beautiful story as well.—Gloria Koster

School Library Journal