THE VELVETEEN RABBIT

This is a story of a toy rabbit made of velveteen. He envied the mechanical toys very much because the little boy always played with them. He wished to be "real" and learned what made a toy real from the skin horse. One day the rabbit was placed in bed with the boy and the boy began to play with him. The boy took him everywhere he went and one day he even called the rabbit "real". This made the rabbit feel very special until one day when he meet two wild rabbits and they told him he was not "real". Then the little boy became very sick with scarlet fever and the rabbit stayed by the boys' side until he was taken away to be burned. This made the little rabbit so sad he cried. From his tear grew a flower with a fairy in it. The fairy transformed the velveteen rabbit into a real rabbit that lived amongst other toys that had once been real to other little boys and girls. One day the little boy saw the rabbit in the woods and thought to himself that it looked like the rabbit he had lost when he had scarlet fever.

This story teaches children not to envy what others have. What you have will someday be enough to make someone really happy. You will have many rewards if you wait patiently for them. It also presents eternal life, the toy rabbit is transformed into a real rabbit to live forever.