Velveteen Rabbit FROM OUR EDITORS
In this parable about rebirth and the mysterious power of love, the magic of a young boy's love changes a beloved toy bunny into a real live rabbit. In this new edition, Robyn Officer's charming watercolor illustrations help to animate Margery Williams' timeless children's classic.
ANNOTATION
By the time the Velveteen Rabbit is dirty, worn out, and about to be burned, he has almost given up hope of ever finding the magic called Real.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Margery Williams' famous story tells of a young boy and his treasured favorite toy, a splendid "fat and bunchy" rabbit, whose ears are lined with pink sateen. He carries it everywhere, talks to it, pretends with it, sleeps with it each night. The love he steadfastly bestows on his toy helps him through a serious illness and afterwards saves his beloved bunny from a terrible fate.
SYNOPSIS
This adaptation of Margery Williams's treasured childhood classic tells how a toy rabbit learns what it means to be loved by a child--and how toys become "Real." This book will bring kids hours of fun as they read the engaging story and color in the pictures.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The beloved tale of the stuffed bunny who becomes real is complemented by delicate pastel drawings. Ages 3-7. (Feb.)
Publishers Weekly
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.
Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot
Although this poignant story of the power of love is now 75 years old, the award-winning artist Loretta Krupinski has given it a fresh look. The little stuffed rabbit wants to know what it is like to be real. It is only after he is loved for years by the little boy who received him as Christmas gift, and is eventually discarded, that he has a chance to become a real rabbit. It is a fantasy that will remain in the hearts of both young listeners and adult readers.
School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 2A pleasant, small volume that joins the growing list of publishers' reworkings of this classic story. Krupinski uses pretty tones of the primary colors in full-page paintings facing pages of text, each headed by a decorative capital forming an elegant link to the pictured story elements. She takes small liberties in both story and pictures in adapting Margery Williams's well-known tale. Here the rabbit's "spotted brown and white" velveteen coat is a soft beige patterned with pale flowers and brighter turquoise spots. Though his color deepens a bit with age, he often looks more calico than velveteen, and his coat is particularly jarring as he encounters the rabbits in the natural world. The abridgment of the text removes some of the early bulky description of the playroom dynamics among the toys. For the most part the story moves well and retains the original language. One crucial omission, however, weakens the set-up of the basic premise. No longer do readers hear of the modern-minded mechanical toys who "pretended they were real." When the Velveteen Rabbit asks the Skin Horse, "What is real?" the idea seems oddly unrelated to anything. Occasionally overly sweet (the fairy is greeting-card precious), the book is appealing in its modest square layout. Libraries wanting varied interpretations of classic titles will be interested.Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston
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