I like to read aloud longer stories to my 23-month-old while is his playing with his toys. Since I finished reading A.A. Milne, I needed a longish book to read so I picked up the Velveteen Rabbit by Margaret William Biano, illustrated by Monique Felix. I love this story, probably because I relate to toys becoming “real.” I had a doll when I was young that was very real to me.
I thought Velveteen Rabbit would be similar enough to Winnie-the-Pooh (thoughts yesterday), with the toy theme and the bunny illustrations, to catch his attention. I thought that he’d enjoy it and recognize it and want to hear me read it. But he did not care in the slightest about the book. It was also much shorter than Milne, so we were only reading it for three days. While my copy did have illustrations on every other page, he just wasn’t into it as he had been with Shepherd’s drawings. (With Winnie-the-Pooh, he’d run over and look at the pictures as I read, yelling “Pooh! Pooh!”). I suppose we’d need a Disney movie to get him interested in Velveteen Rabbit. (We also have a Winnie-the-Pooh chair and a Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt he’s just outgrown, so maybe the marketing helped make Pooh a favorite too.)
We will have to revisit this one when he is old enough to appreciate the toys-alive aspect.
