"The Velveteen Rabbit" is a classic that celebrates love

When I was in high school, I did not feel very special. I did not feel popular. I did not feel significant. However, my perspective in life changed significantly when a male friend whom I admired shared with me The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. It made me like at myself and others in a new light. It made me realize that I could be special, no matter what I looked like.

This is the part of the book that he read to me:

"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 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 happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be 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."

Now, when I want children and youth to get beyond appearances, to look at the real people next to them in their classrooms, I read to them the story of The Velveteen Rabbit. It never fails to move my daughter and the other children and youth that I know in my work and in my life. Unconditional love is a powerful message for a person of any age.