READING THE STORIES

I Love You

There is a lot of reality in children’s stories. I can’t remember my mom ever reading us a story. I don’t think she related to children and with her childhood I’m surprised she was able to cope with life at all. She was a beautiful woman. I don’t know how old mom was when some government agency in Georgia decided that she would be better off in an orphanage than going to the cotton fields with her mom. She stayed there for years because people wanted to adopt babies not little ones who could walk and talk. The people who adopted mom had their own story. She was engaged and her sister ran off with her fiancé. Grandmother got on a bus & married the bus driver. When mom did something wrong, she was locked in the attic, or her head held under cold bathwater. Many nights she was sent to bed without supper. Dad was the first person to show her love and compassion. Mom volunteered at the USO and that’s how they met – as dance partners. At 73, I’ve begun reading the stories I never heard as a child. If you have a favorite, please let me know.

“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.

The mechanical toys were very superior and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.”

Margery Williams Bianco. The Velveteen Rabbit (Kindle Locations 47-62). Kindle Edition. Project Gutenberg

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco | Project Gutenberg

ART: The Graphics Fairy