Currently, only the first floor of the 150,000-square-foot building is open, with more than 40 immersive storybook-themed exhibits.
Future plans include a café filled with storybook-referenced food like Strega Nona’s pasta and Bobo’s jum-jills from the book “The Funny Thing.” There also will be rooms for crafts and other activities, the Pettits said, as well as more storybook immersions.
“We were really into trying to get kids to really love reading, rather than being able to read,” Deb Pettit said. “You know, I think they are pretty different things and they’re both important, but I think our love lies in trying to get people to become readers.”
She said she believes people who want to ban or politicize books or “decide who reads what” are not serious readers.
“I think they’re often people that have had poorer or few experiences with actually reading,” Deb Pettit said. “And it’s like they’re afraid of what they don’t know.”
She said she hoped the exhibit would expose new and not-so-new readers to characters, cultures and experiences that might be unfamiliar to them.