Rating: Summary: Does it hurt to be real? Review: This is my all-time favorite children's book! A little boy receives a stuffed rabbit for Christmas, and they love each other until one day...This book is so true and honest in its emotion, you will not be able to read it without shedding tears. It deserves much more than 5 stars. Read it aloud with your child...share the beauty and the love.
Rating: Summary: "Does it hurt to be real?" Review: This is my all-time favorite children's book! The story opens on Christmas morning, as a little boy receives a stuffed rabbit and plays with it - for a few minutes. Gradually, the boy does come to love the rabbit, whose innocent little heart almost bursts with joy, because he knows that being loved is how toys become "real." The boy and rabbit are fast friends, until one day the boy becomes very sick...
This story is so timeless and honest in its emotion, you will not be able to read it without shedding tears. The little bunny's desire to be real, and how that wish comes true, make for a classic story that I enjoy reading again and again. It deserves more than 5 stars. Read it aloud with your child!
Rating: Summary: Every Child Should Own This Book! Review: This is the kind of book a great childhood revolves around....one parent, one child...the parent reading the book, the child listening, learning, and bonding with the parent and the world of books.
Rating: Summary: Excellent value lesson for young and old alike. Review: This moving story touched on many emotions. Without the fanfare and wide scenes of OZ, Margary Williams has created a world no larger than a young boy's bedroom and back yard, a world in which cosmic truths and values exist and are learned by a small toy rabbit. Starting with the feeling of being "less than," and growing toward the understanding of what is Real, I re-experienced my own early feelings and inquisitiveness. Concepts of love, loyalty, desire, along with the value of a tear and the awareness that deep change is a gradual thing are only a few of the things that were refreshed in me. This story removed much of the unconscious callousness with which I had been viewing the world. Re-reading or simply remembering the story keeps me in touch with some basics I'd lost along the way. Thank you, Margary, thank you.
Rating: Summary: A Gorgeous Velveteen Rabbit! Review: This story is one of those priceless stories from my childhood. I've always loved it, and when I saw this version of it, I had to have it. Donna Green does absolutely stunning illustrations and the story really comes to life. I highly recommend this classic!
Rating: Summary: Children's book, my foot! This is a book for EVERYONE! Review: This was a favorite childhood book of mine, and this touching tale stayed with me even as a grown-up lady. I lost my copy in a move long ago, borrowed the book from someone else, and I loved it as much as I did as a little girl (I went and bought my own copy, plus the sequel THE SKIN HORSE) Yeah, I know that the "Product Details" list it as "for ages 4-8," and you know what? I don't care! To cram it into a box marked with an age group doesn't do it justice, for it has themes that are timeless and universal -- love, friendship, feeling appreciated and cared for, meaning something to someone and having them mean something to you, aging, social hierarchy. If this is a children's book, then it's a children's book you never outgrow! 5 stars? I'd give it 10 if I could!
Rating: Summary: One of the Best Children's Books ever Review: This was my favorite book growing up, and started a love of reading that I have to this day. The message it gives is timeless -- magic can happen if you are steadfast and believe. I recommend this for all children, and for anyone who needs to be reminded of the power of love.
Rating: Summary: One of the Best Children's Books ever Review: This was my favorite book growing up, and started a love of reading that I have to this day. The message it gives is timeless -- magic can happen if you are steadfast and believe. I recommend this for all children, and for anyone who needs to be reminded of the power of love.
Rating: Summary: Classic, sweet and a must for children of all ages Review: This was my mother's favorite story, so she read it to me as a child and I really never appreciated it as much as when I was older and read it to my children... maybe that's the way it's supposed to go? My son used to grab this book from his shelf a lot for me to read to him - and it was just to see mommy cry (I always cry when I read this book), he knew the book by heart and coached me when my throat was too tight to speak through the 'emotional' parts. He surprised me last year in 1st grade when he took the book into class to read to his classmates (I didn't know he took it). His teacher called me up telling me how much of a good reader he is... and that he cried when he read the book to his classmates... wow. Books seldom leave a mark, but this one sure does... sorta like a legacy. This book makes me 'real'.
Rating: Summary: A book that makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. Review: To label The Velveteen Rabbit as simply a children's book would not do it much justice. I've read this story many times over and have gotten friends and other family members to enjoy it as well. I guess I wouldn't have related so much to this story had I not seen it unfold in front of my very eyes for the past 16 years. Teddy, for my sister knew no better names for teddy bears at the time, is a two foot tall pink bunny rabbit my sister got when she was about seven. At the time, Teddy was sitting on a shelf in a large department store looking out at the hustle and bustle of customers go by. My sister must've gone by that shelf three or four times before asking a store clerk help her bring it down. It was at that point that she decided she wasn't going to go home without it. She clung on to Teddy's neck defensively while approaching mom as if Teddy was body armor she couldn't live without. "But you have so many of them already!" protested my mom. "This one is different," pouted my sister. Teddy is cotton-stuffed rabbit, covered with short yarn hairs of dull pink. She wore a white-turquoise sweater that covered her round bushy tail at the back. It was my sister's velveteen rabbit. "Ok fine," mom conceded. From that day forward, I saw as much of Teddy as I have my sister. They're inseparable. As the Skin Horse in the book said "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 your 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." Teddy too has grown threadbare in places and isn't as fluffy as she used to be. Her eyes have gotten dull from rubbing and scratching. Her neck has grown thin and fragile, but my sister loves her all the same if not even more. To my sister, Teddy was made real a long time ago. It's only more recently that I've come to realize that Teddy has become part of the family. My sister was right. Teddy is different. Different from all the other toys we've had in the past. Teddy is real. After reading this book, I realize that love is a journey. Perhaps not one from make-believe to reality, but from belief to truth. There are many ways to interpret the lessons from this book. I have several. And my take away has been if you truly believe in your love for someone and care about them, then in time it will become the truth that need not be spoken and will last forever. Applied to life, if you believe so much in something that you are willing to stick it out regardless of what other people think, then it becomes the truth that most people never find in their lives. If you have a dream, believe in it, work towards it and live it. This is a timeless must-read for any reader.
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