today i read miriam one of my favorite childhood books, fuzzy bunny. i always loved this story of a well loved handmade bunny who finds himself feeling threatened by his girl's new toys. he ends up being knocked to the floor and rolls under the bed where he feels he will never be found. his little girl finds him and realizes how worn he is and decides to fix him up. she gives him an "operation" where she re-stuffs him and even "put another stitch in his lips so that he could smile again."
these days "old worn out" aka "well loved" toys are relegated to the trash in leu of new brightly colored factory made toys. how sad! so i just love that this book is about a well loved handmade toy (made by the little girl's mother) being refurbished by the little girl no-less and then given a place of honor among her new toys at a tea party. she even "gave Fuzzy the biggest piece [of cake] because he'd been so brave."
Goodness, that brought me down memory lane! I had that book as a kid, too. We had a lot of stuffed and even handmade toys, and I bet my mom wanted to get that same idea across to us: elevating the status of our "well loved" items and encouraging repurposing. Thank you for the memory refresher!
ReplyDeleteWow! I read that book until the pages wore out! Oh all the memories that came flooding back as soon as I saw the cover! I can't believe someone else loves that book too. Thank you for that!!
ReplyDeleteI loved that book! I also love the idea of repairing, rather than retiring well-loved things. I was just having this conversation with a friend the other day about how the best toys are ones that you have for a really long time, because they take on new meanings as you grow- my favorite were the old-fashioned Swedish wooden blocks. So glad that you entered the Ready Made contest- if I were a betting woman, I would put my money on you.
ReplyDeleteNo way! How funny that you would mention this. Fuzzy rabbit is a GREAT book! In fact, I still have it from when I was a kid, and I read it to my son. He loves it too. Ah, memory lane!
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