The Velveteen Rabbit

[laughs] That's hilarious.

You know, you know what? I, I auditioned for The Velveteen Rabbit, um, for this lady c- named Yatese Harvey.

Okay.

And funnily enough, I, Win Everett, who has been on, um, Chad Powers-

... and we were taught by the same lady.

Oh.

But I auditioned for this lady when I was a kid, and she put me in The Velveteen Rabbit, and then from then on I did community theater with her, moved high schools so I could be in her, her theater program.

Oh, wow.

I have three book recommendations.

The first one is for a younger person, but it, it's also quite suitable for a mature person, and it's a book called The Velveteen Rabbit, written by Margery Williams.

It is a very beautiful, tiny story about a toy and how you become real by really loving it, and I think that in this time this might be a very good book because I think we've forgotten a lot about love.

The second book about love is a love to belong and a love to have a place in the world, and that's A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul.

Which was the Beaver Books edition from, I don't know, what year is this? Uh, 1978.

So as a kid, the first book I can remember ever having of my own to read, even though Mam read it to me, was a book called The Velveteen Rabbit.

And then there was, 'cause I was a fairly early reader, there was a, a passage of time where I would read Dr.

Who Target books.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah, so The, The Magic Faraway Tree, and we had that conversation.

You said, "Well, I read that as a kid as well." And I was like, "All right, hang on." Y- so when I think back and I think about this, I went from The Velveteen Rabbit, Mum reading us The Hobbit, to The Magic Faraway Tree, and then from The Magic Faraway Tree onto things like Target Doctor Who books, and then by the time I was nine or 10, thanks to Pops, I was reading things like Where Eagles Dare, and then by the time I was 11, I was reading, uh, James Herbert books-

[laughs]

I will try to remember to put, uh, her in the show notes.

She read a little passage, a tiny bit, uh, from The Velveteen Rabbit, which every time I listen to it, watch it, hear it, read it, it, it makes me weep.

My grandmother was the same, my mom's mom.

There were few things that could make my grandma weep.

When my family and my mom and dad and, and we kids left her house, she never said goodbye.

She would walk back in the house, and I knew she was weeping, even as a kid.

So I'm gonna read a little passage out of, um, The Velveteen Rabbit, which is by Margery Williams Bianco.

Many of you perhaps know the story, and I hope that I'm s- I'm still visible.

To find out more, head over to storiesfromnowandthen.com. Also, remember to add us to your podcast library wherever you listen so that you can come back to the old library every week.

And with that, Nicola will take us home with the second part of The Velveteen Rabbit.

OK, we're back with the story of the Velveteen Rabbit.

Back to the garden where the boy is playing and the Velveteen Rabbit has just seen two creatures coming out of the bracken there.

Let's see what happens.

They stared at him and the little rabbit stared back and all the time their noses twitched.

I can jump higher than anything, he meant when the boy threw him, but of course he didn't want to say so.

Can you hop on your hind legs? asked the furry rabbit.

and the novel treats these threats with a seriousness that surprised readers who expected a cosy animal story.

Marjorie Williams's The Velveteen Rabbit, published in 1922, explores the idea of a stuffed toy rabbit becoming real through the love of a child.

In Japanese culture, rabbits have been popular artistic subjects for centuries, appearing in paintings, woodblock prints, and textile designs.

The Chojugiga, a set of 12th-century Japanese scroll paintings, features rabbits and frogs acting out human activities, and is sometimes called the first manga.

They cannot vomit, they cannot sweat, and they eat their own droppings, and all of this is perfectly ordinary and efficient for an animal that has been surviving on grasslands for millions of years.

The cultural presence of rabbits stretches from Aztec drunkenness scales measured in rabbits to Japanese moon-pounding legends to English marginalia of rabbits wielding tiny swords.

Peter Rabbit, the White Rabbit, the Velveteen Rabbit and Bugs Bunny are all reflections of the same small animal seen through different lenses of human imagination.

a child's first soft toy is often a rabbit and the choice seems almost instinctive something about the long ears and round body reads as gentle and safe rabbits do not ask for much hay water space and the company of their own kind will sustain a rabbit for a decade or more They express joy by jumping and twisting in the air, contentment by flopping onto their side, and trust by closing their eyes in the presence of someone they know.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.

He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be.

His coat was spotted brown and white.

He had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen.

On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.

there were other things in the stocking nuts and oranges and a toy engine and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse but the rabbit was quite the best of all for at least two hours the boy loved him and then aunts and uncles came to dinner and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the velveteen rabbit was forgotten For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him.

He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him.

According to IMDb.com, In this film, Jessie's pull string phrases can be heard for the first time.

And while arriving at her campsite early on in the movie, one of the multi-buses notices two kids listening to their mother read The Velveteen Rabbit, a story about a toy who wishes to become real.

And last but not least, also out on DVD this week, is the horror parody film Scary Movie.

The sixth installment in the Scary Movie film series and spiritual sequel to the first two films came out on June 5th and stars Marlon and John Waynes, who co-wrote it, Regina Hall, and Anna Faris.