Becoming Real - The Velveteen Rabbit

I was reading this story to my son the other evening all snuggled up in bed and the words are so beautiful I wanted to share them with you... I think this extract speaks for itself.

Extract from The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

            “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse for he was always very truthful.

“When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by

bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It

takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who

break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have been carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved

off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very

shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real

you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“…. Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”