True. I guess I was thinking too much of my personal experience back then; I gotta track down a copy and read it again.

But yes, the actual story ain't innocent. And I remember being greatly saddened at the part where the Rabbit is packed up with the young boy's other books and toys to be set ablaze due to the doctor's orders.

But it was the elderly Skin Horse's soulful speech about what makes a toy "Real" and later the Rabbit's transformation into a real rabbit that was SO profound that, if I can remember correctly, both my younger brother and I started sleeping with our stuffed rabbits every night. Stories like this do that to you at that age, I guess -- and we both knew our friends at school would likely make fun of us because boys "weren't supposed to play with stuffed animals". But screw it, sleeping with our bunnies just felt RIGHT back then.