The Velveteen Rabbit

When I lived in DC, I worked a second job at a Barnes & Noble. Don't snicker, I loved this job. So much fun. Getting to read releases before they were out to the public, talking to other people who loved books as much as I did, and enjoying the craziness that was my last night on the job - which happened to coincide with the release of the last Harry Potter book.

All of the employees had several things in common: all of us had at least one college degree, for most of us this was either a second job or helping to pay for a degree, we all loved books, and we all avoided working the children's section like it was the plague.

Okay, so a few dedicated souls actually liked the children's section. I was not one of them. I worked nights and weekends, and many parents acted like somehow we would baby-sit their kids if they left them there. Not so much.

So the several times I couldn't escape my manager fast enough, I would work in the children's section. And inevitably end up 80% annoyed and 20% nostalgic.

Why nostalgic you ask? Because I loved books and reading even as a child. My parents encouraged my sis and I to read from the start and I have great memories of the Berenstain Bears, The Story of Ferninand, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Katy No-Pockets, and The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes, among many, many others.

But the other day, I was talking to a friend, and he mentioned a book that I get more and more sentimental about each year, and now I consider it one of my favorites, even though it used to practically bring me to tears when I read it.

Yes, I'm talking about The Velveteen Rabbit.

It has to be one of the best children's book's ever! Any bunny that is "fat and bunchy" is a cutie in my book. Especially one with a "sawdust heart." I mean, really.

Ach, but when the crappy doctor orders him to be burnt after the Boy has scarlet fever, even though the Bunny is all excited about going to the seaside - breaks your heart.

I mean, I know it ends well - the magic nursery fairy stops by and she makes it all better - she makes him Real, and then he sees the Boy the next year.

But it's those excrutiating paragraphs when you think the old Bunny might be burned are really emotional when you're little, but it makes the ending even better!

There's really no point to this blog except for the fact that, like the Bunny, we can easily forget about the stuff that we really liked when we were younger.

So which children's books did you all really like?