The Velveteen Rabbit

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.