What is The Velveteen Rabbit about?

The Velveteen Rabbit is a children's classic by Margery Williams, written more than 100 years ago. It follows a stuffed rabbit given to a little boy on Christmas morning. At first he is overlooked in favour of shinier, more expensive toys, but over time the boy comes to love him. The old Skin Horse tells the rabbit that becoming Real takes a long time and usually leaves you a bit worn.

What money lessons can kids learn from The Velveteen Rabbit?

Although the book never mentions money, it teaches three useful lessons: price is what you pay while value is what something is worth to you, the shiny new thing usually fades, and good things take time and often show some wear along the way.

What is the difference between price and value for kids?

Price is the amount of money you pay for something. Value is how much something is worth to you personally. A well-loved toy may have a low price to a stranger but be priceless to the child who owns it. Asking kids to pick a favourite item and list why it matters, without mentioning its cost, is a simple way to show the difference.

How can I use The Velveteen Rabbit to teach my child about investing?

The rabbit's journey is a gentle way to show that good things take time and that wear and tear along the way is normal. Stock market investments can have bumpy periods, but over long periods patience has often been rewarded. Markets don't always bounce back quickly and nothing is guaranteed, so it is best suited to money you won't need for many years. This is general education and not financial advice.

How do I stop my child wanting every new toy?

Instead of simply saying no, try asking, 'Will you still love this in a month? In a year?' This teaches children to test excitement against time, which helps them make better spending decisions as they grow.

What questions can I ask my child after reading The Velveteen Rabbit?

Try asking which toy they would least want to lose, what they think a stranger would pay for it, why those two answers are different, and what they have had to wait for that turned out to be worth it.

What a 100-Year-Old Rabbit Can Teach Your Kids About Money (The Velveteen Rabbit)

Will Rainey

Oct 18

4 min read

There’s a famous book called The Velveteen Rabbit. It was written more than 100 years ago, so you may have heard of it. No worries if you haven’t. I hadn’t read it until recently (although I do remember a reference to it in an episode of Friends).

The book isn’t about money, but as I read it, I kept thinking it might be one of the best money stories ever written, despite never mentioning money at all.

Let me give you a quick overview of the story, which you can share with your kids.

The Velveteen Rabbit Story in a Nutshell

On Christmas morning, a little boy opens a present: a soft, velveteen rabbit. For a few hours he’s delighted. But then the other presents take over, especially the shiny mechanical toys that wind up and whirr, and the rabbit is pushed to the back of the toy cupboard.

The mechanical toys look down on him. They’re proud and expensive, and they act as if they’re better than everyone else. The rabbit feels small and plain. The only one who’s kind to him is the Skin Horse, the oldest toy in the nursery, who has been loved so much that most of his hair has rubbed off.

The rabbit asks the Skin Horse what it means to be Real. The Skin Horse explains that it isn’t about how you’re made. Real is what happens when a child loves you for a long, long time. It doesn’t happen all at once, and by the time it does, you’ve usually become a bit shabby and worn. But that doesn’t matter, because once you’re Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Soon the boy picks the rabbit as his bedtime toy and the two become inseparable. The rabbit goes everywhere with him: through the garden, into the mud, under the covers every night. His fur gets rubbed thin and his whiskers fall out, and he becomes the most loved toy in the house.

Then the boy gets very ill. When he recovers, the grown-ups decide the toys from his sickbed must be thrown away. To them, the rabbit is just a dirty old toy. But to the boy, he’s everything. The ending is gentle and hopeful, and I won’t spoil it here, so your kids can enjoy finding out. (If you’d like to read the original, it’s now in the public domain.)

What it teaches us about money

Here are three ideas from the story that are worth talking through with your kids.

1. Price is what you pay. Value is what it’s worth to you.

The rabbit’s price drops every day he’s played with. His value to the boy rises every day. The grown-ups only see the price, which is why they’d happily throw him away.

Kids see price tags constantly, but they rarely stop to ask whether something is actually worth it to them.

Ask your child: “Which of your toys would you least want to lose? What do you think a stranger would pay for it? Why are those two numbers so different?”

My daughters know how much this story means to me, because of Roland Rat. He’s a toy from my childhood, based on a TV puppet rat from the 80s. We’ve moved countries a few times, and each time he’s been carefully placed on a shelf in my bedroom. He’s in poor condition now, and you wouldn’t get much for him if you tried to sell him. But my daughters know exactly what he’s worth to me.

2. The shiny new thing usually fades.

The mechanical toys looked impressive and felt superior. But by the end of the story the plain rabbit was the one that mattered. Every parent knows the cycle: the thing they had to have in the shop becomes the thing under the bed a week later.

Ask your child: “Will you still love this in a month? In a year?” You’re not saying no. You’re teaching them to test hype against time.

3. The good stuff takes time, and time leaves marks.

The story also got me thinking about investing in the stock market. I’ve told my daughters that we’ve been investing for nearly two decades. Over that time, our investments have been through a lot: the financial crisis in 2008, the Covid crash in 2020, the tariff sell-off in April 2025. There were stretches where they looked battered and worn, and plenty of moments when it would have been easy to give up on them.

But like the rabbit, they came through the dirt, and they’re now worth far more than when we started. It wasn’t a quick or comfortable process, and it never is. The wear and tear along the way was part of getting there.

One caution: markets don’t always bounce back as quickly as the story suggests, and this is just my own experience, not financial advice. But what I want my daughters to see is that time and patience are the biggest part of the story - especially as they have their money invested in the stock market too.

👉 Read more: How to teach your kids about the Stock Market

Try it this week

Read or retell The Velveteen Rabbit story together. The short summary above works well at bedtime.
Ask your child to choose a favourite object and list three reasons it matters to them, none of which can involve its price.
Next time they ask for something new, try the “month or a year?” question.

The takeaway

The most valuable things in your child’s life, whether toys, friendships or savings, rarely look impressive at first. They become valuable through time, attention and patience.

The sooner they learn that the price tag is only part of the story, the better their money decisions will be.

Thanks for reading,

Will

P.S., Grandpa's Fortune Fables will be 5 years old this week! Thank you to all that have purchased a copy and helped spread the word. It's sold over 30,000 copies and is in 5 different languages.