Lisa Rowe Fraustino, who directs the graduate programs in children’s literature at Hollins University, has edited a new book that brings a wide array of critical approaches to a beloved children’s classic.
The Velveteen Rabbit at 100, published by University Press of Mississippi, features 13 essays on Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit, which was first released in 1922 to immediate success and has never been out of print. “The story has been adapted for film, television, and theater across a range of mediums including animation, claymation, live action, musical, and dance,” University Press of Mississippi explains. “Frequently the story inspires a sentimental, nostalgic response – as well as a corresponding dismissive response from critics.”
The publisher notes, “It is surprising that, despite its longevity and popularity, The Velveteen Rabbit has inspired a relatively thin dossier of serious literary scholarship, [which] this volume seeks to correct.”
Megan Dowd Lambert, author of Reading Picture Books with Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking about What They See and a former lecturer in children’s literature at Simmons University, agrees. “There has not been significant scholarly engagement with The Velveteen Rabbit before, and this dynamic, engaging collection will fill that gap and potentially spur future critical work.”
“The Velveteen Rabbit at 100 more than doubles the amount of serious literary scholarship on The Velveteen Rabbit,” adds Margaret Mackey, author of Space, Place, and Children’s Reading Development: Mapping the Connections. “The essays in this collection explore the paradoxes and contradictions of this story and its reception, raising many fascinating new issues and questions.”
Along with directing the children’s literature graduate programs at Hollins, Fraustino edits the journal Children’s Literature. With Karen Coats, she coedited Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to Postfeminism, published by University Press of Mississippi and winner of the 2018 Edited Book Award of the Children’s Literature Association.
In addition to editing The Velveteen Rabbit at 100, Fraustino is among the book’s contributors, which also include Kelly Blewett, Claudia Camicia, Alisa Clapp-Itnyre, Elisabeth Graves, Karlie Herndon, KaaVonia Hinton, Holly Blackford Humes, Melanie Hurley, Kara K. Keeling, Maleeha Malik, Claudia Mills, Elena Paruolo, Scott T. Pollard, Jiwon Rim, Paige Sammartino, Adrianna Zabrzewska, and Wenduo Zhang. Malik is currently a student in the children’s literature graduate programs, and in her acknowledgments for the book, Fraustino states that “in a Hollins University graduate seminar on anthropomorphism, [Malik] made the stunning connection between The Velveteen Rabbit and Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane that led to our collaboration on our chapter in this volume.”
Along with directing the children’s literature graduate programs at Hollins, Fraustino edits the journal Children’s Literature. With Karen Coats, she coedited Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to Postfeminism, published by University Press of Mississippi and winner of the 2018 Edited Book Award of the Children’s Literature Association.
Top Photo: Lisa Rowe Fraustino on the Hollins campus last summer with a cutout of The Velveteen Rabbit created by Ashley Wolff, the author and/or illustrator of over 70 children’s picture books and a visiting associate professor with the graduate programs in children’s literature at Hollins.
