Welcome to your bedtime story.
Snuggle in,
Get some comfy blankets,
All the extra pillows.
Feather your nest,
Making sure comfort and warmth is of utmost importance.
Perhaps taking a few stretches,
Long body stretch,
Taking a couple exaggerated inhales,
Then sigh it out.
Inhale,
Sigh it out.
One more inhale.
Tonight we'll be reading The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjorie Williams.
This is an abbreviated board book version.
There once was 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 and his ears were lined with pink sateen.
He was naturally shy and being only made of velveteen,
Some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him.
The only person who was kind to him at all was a skin horse.
He was very wise for he had seen so many mechanical toys and he knew that they were only toys and would never turn into anything else.
What is real?
Asked the rabbit one day.
Real isn't how you are made to the skin horse,
It's a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long long time.
By the time you are real you get loose in the joints and very shabby.
For once you are real you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand.
There was a person called Nana who went swooping about like a great wind and hustled to play things away in cupboards.
The tin ones hated it but the rabbit didn't mind it so much for wherever he was thrown he came down soft.
One evening when the boy was going to bed he couldn't find the china dog that always slept with him.
Here Nana said take your old bunny.
That night and for many nights after the velveteen rabbit slept in the boy's bed and so time went on and the little rabbit was very happy.
So happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier.
And his tail becoming unsewn and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the boy had kissed him.
Once the rabbit was left out after dusk and Nana had to go look for him.
She looked for him with a candle because the boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there.
Fancy all the fuss for a toy she said.
You mustn't say that the boy said he isn't even a toy he's real.
When the little rabbit heard that he was so happy for he knew that when the skin horse had said was true at last he was real.
The boy himself had said it.
Near the house there was a wood.
One evening the rabbit was sitting on the wood and he was there was a wood.
One evening while the rabbit was lying there alone he saw two strange beings.
They were rabbits like himself but quite furry and brand new.
They stared at him and the little rabbit stared right back and all the time their noses twitched.
He hasn't got any hind legs he doesn't smell right.
The wild rabbit exclaimed jumping backwards he isn't a rabbit at all he isn't real.
I am real said the little rabbit the boy said so.
Come back and play with me I know I am real but there was no answer.
Weeks passed and the little rabbit grew very old and shabby but the boy loved him just as much.
He loved him so hard that the pink lining to turn from inside his ears turned gray and his brown spots faded.
And then one day the boy was ill.
His little body was so hot that it burned the rabbit when he held him close.
The velveteen rabbit lay there hidden from sight under the bedclothes and he never stirred for he was afraid that if they found him someone might take him away and he knew that the boy needed him.
Presently the boy got better.
The room was to be disinfected and all the books and toys that the boy had played with in bed must be burnt.
How about his old bunny Nana asked that said the doctor why it's a mass of scarlet fever germs burn it at once.
And so the little rabbit was put into a sack and carried out to the garden.
The little rabbit felt very lonely a tear a real tear trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.
Where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground.
The blossom opened and out of it stepped a fairy.
I am the nursery magic fairy she said.
I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved.
When they are old and worn out I turn to the fairy and say I am the nursery magic fairy.
When they are old and worn out I turn them into real.
But wasn't I real before asked the little rabbit.
You were real to the boy the fairy said because he loved you now you shall be real to everyone.
She flew with the little rabbit into the wood where the wild rabbits danced.
I brought you a new playfellow the fairy said you must be very kind to him and teach him all about rabbit land.
And she kissed the little rabbit again and put him down on the grass.
But the little rabbit sat quite still for a moment for he didn't want them to see that he was all made in just one piece.
He did not know that the fairy had in fact changed him.
Just then something hit him in the nose.
And before he thought what he was even doing he lifted his hind toe to scratch it.
He actually had hind legs.
Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur soft and shiny.
He was a real rabbit at last.
The seasons passed and in the spring the boy went out to play in the wood and saw two rabbits.
One of them had strange markings under his fur and the boy thought to himself why he looks just like my old bunny.
But he never knew that it really was his own bunny come back to look at the child who had first helped him to become real.
So sweet dreams.
