The Rabbit hOle, the Kansas City literary-themed museum that’s been in the works for the past eight years, finally opened its doors to the public on March 12, and 900 people took the opportunity to be the first ones to visit the country’s first and only immersive museum of children’s literature.
Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid, two former booksellers who used to own the Reading Reptile, an indie bookstore in Kansas City, conceptualized the museum, which celebrates children’s literature published in the past century with three-dimensional exhibits that include multi-sensory elements to allow visitors to physically enter beloved books. After closing their 30-year-old bookstore in 2016 to focus on the project, Cowdin and Pettid spearheaded the effort to make their dream a reality with a $20 million capital campaign that launched in 2018.
Today, the Rabbit hOle is housed in a 165,000-square-foot, four-story building in North Kansas City’s Iron District that currently features approximately 45 exhibits plus the Rabbit hOle Bookstore. The exhibits will rotate, as the Rabbit hOle has the rights to 70 works of classic literature.
When the project is completed, the Rabbit hOle will include, besides the museum and bookstore, a print shop and story lab, a makerspace, a resource library, a discovery gallery showcasing original book illustrations, and a café.
