undercurrents of sentimentality and sadness persist in the tale of a small boy who finds a velveteen rabbit in his Christmas stocking. In the nursery the rabbit is looked down on by the fancier wind up toys. He asks the skin horse, "What is Real?" The skin horse tells him, "When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." The boy comes to adore the rabbit, and they are constant companions. This happy existence continues until the boy contracts scarlet fever. The rabbit stays with him, whispering to him of the games they will play again when he is better. As the boy gets better his family prepares to take him to the seaside. Although the rabbit looks forward to the seaside very much, the doctor insists he be thrown out and burned along with the other toys that may be infected. While the rabbit is waiting to be burned, he cries a real tear, from which a fairy emerges. The fairy tells the rabbit that he was real to the boy, because the boy loved him, but now she will make him truly real. Later, the boy sees a real rabbit in the garden. He thinks it looks like his old rabbit, but he does not know that it really is the velveteen rabbit he once loved. Successful author of children's books Bianco wrote numerous other children's books, with her son becoming the namesake of one of them, 1925's Poor Cecco: The Wonderful Story of a Wonderful Wooden Dog Who Was the Jolliest Toy in the House Until He Went Out to Explore the World, about the interactions of children's toys with each other and with the human, animal, and toy members of the world beyond the toy cupboard. A return to more sober themes marks Bianco's other popular works, such as the same year's The Little Wooden Doll, illustrated by her daughter Pamela, in which the title character is badly mistreated by some children, but shown love and compassion by another child, which made her whole again. Each year, for the remaining two decades of her life, Bianco produced numerous books and short stories. Most of them continued her preoccupation with toys coming to life and the ability of inanimate objects and animals to express human emotions and feelings. There was always melancholy, but