Children’s Books Children’s Museums II

As soon as I heard about the Rabbit hOle, I tried to think about how I could possibly get there. And our Thanksgiving trip to Columbia, Missouri, proved to be the way. Kansas City is two hours past Columbia, but we left a couple of days early and spent a night on the way and a night in Kansas City so that we could check it out. It is an amazing place, and I think I missed as much as I saw and experienced, so I’m already trying to figure out how to go again.

I was excited to see the story re-creations I had seen pictures of, so I breezed right past the story of the “true founder” Rabbit Fox and the entrance to his grotto or burrow and started in the bookstore where I knew the great green room was located. To get to the great green room, you crawl into a tree, which features pictures from another Margaret Wise Brown book illustrated by  Clement Hurd.

Then, you emerge into a full-size re-creation of the great green room from Goodnight Moon.

Look, it’s the quiet old lady whispering hush! After exploring the Lucky Rabbit bookstore a bit, we were ready for the main event. Before we went to the museum, I was a bit perplexed by its name. Nowadays, when I hear the phrase “rabbit hole” I think of what happens when you’re on the internet and one search leads to another. I was also a bit annoyed by the way Rabbit hOle was written. In fact, in order to get my phone to accept the unusual capitalization, I had to keep retyping. When we got to the entrance, though, I saw that you literally go into a rabbit hole to get to the rest of the exhibits.

I didn’t stop to read the story of the Fox Rabbit, but here’s a taste of the conceit.

Fox Rabbit’s grotto contains 3000 actual books molded in silicone and the first lines of 141 books. It also apparently contains portals you can peek through to see scenes from the story of Fox Rabbit but as I wrote earlier I feel like I missed more than I saw.

After walking through the grotto for quite a while (I think you go down and then back up again), you emerge to see Madeline frightening Miss Clavel.

And the chair from A Chair For My Mother and Babar and Frances and Strega Nona and and and…

Some rooms were re-created here as well including the classroom from Crow Boy and the kitchen from Blueberries for Sal.

I think every Curious George story was represented in this diorama.

Frog and Toad’s world was there, too.

Their world was a bit overshadowed by My Father’s Dragon.

The stairs include lines from the book, and when you get to the top, you find even more. One of my favorite parts was these dioramas, where you could follow several wordless picture books simultaneously.

With the rights to over 70 titles, the actual founders Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid certainly aren’t limiting themselves to classic books.

Apparently, David has a squishy booger in his nose, and this character from Captain Underpants appears when you open one of the actual bathroom stall doors.

In addition to all the individual books, there are two areas that include many books. The first one purports to be a “Black Power” bookstore.

The second includes many books in Spanish.

This is just a sampling of the 30 thousand square feet and 40 represented books that have been created already.  And this is just the beginning of it all as there are plans to keep creating and expanding in the large former tin factory.  I’ll write more about the space and what else has already been created in another post.