Moral Lessons in Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit

It’s a story about unconditional love and real beauty--beauty that comes from the inside. The rabbit is teased first by the more modern and “high tech” toys in the boy’s room because he has no cranks or springs or other mechanical parts. Then he’s teased by the real rabbits because he doesn’t look like a real rabbit. This makes the rabbit sad and self-conscious. All children are teased at some point by someone, and unfortunately, some more than others. So, I think all children who read this book can identify with the rabbit and how he feels when he’s teased. However, the book soon teaches you that beauty is really not about how you look, it’s about who you are inside, and when someone loves you for who you really are, the way you look doesn’t matter. The old, shabby skin horse and then the old shabby velveteen rabbit prove this point. The boy’s uncle and the boy respectively loved their toys so much that the toys became real to them, and even when they were old and beat up and not as new and shiny as the other toys, they were still the most-loved toys.