POCATELLO — A popular pop-up book shop with a whimsical name inspired by Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” is set to open a permanent brick-and-mortar store inside Station Square in downtown Pocatello next month.
Hares and Hatters bookshop is the creation of owners Nicki Stanton and Jamie Wood, who both have degrees in reading and literacy. With Nicki’s creative writing degree and Jamie’s Master of Fine Arts degree in children’s literacy, the duo has plenty of expertise and passion behind their novel endeavor.
“We both thought that an independent bookstore could be really a positive thing for Pocatello,” Stanton said. “We feel like the used bookstores in town are doing a great job providing a great place for people who are interested in (books) but there’s not really a place for people who want new books, book clubs, author events and visits. So, we will be opening in June with new books. We have a massive book order coming at the end of the month and we’ll also carry family board games as well as stationery and some other fun items.”
The name Hares and Hatters came from the desire to invoke the feeling of finding an eccentric bookstore off the street in England or Europe and one of the initial concepts of the store was founded on the idea of making quarterly book boxes with special themes.
“We started with a mad tea party book box which was a women’s fiction book box that came with tea and books and fun things and then a ‘curiouser and curiouser’ book box for children,” Stanton said. “We sold those (boxes) and it went really well. We just didn’t realize the time involved in putting together a book box and milling those out versus the cost benefit of putting those together.”
The pair always had ambitions for opening a fully-fledged bookstore and now that dream is set to become a reality. While the book boxes will only be a few times a year and centered around authors that are visiting the shop, the renewed focus on providing quality books and materials to residents will allow Stanton and Wood to better allocate their time and money to the brick-and-mortar bookstore.
“It will be a massive amount of books,” Stanton said. “We’ll have a large selection of new fiction and a large collection of nonfiction. We’re hoping to ramp up over time. Once we know what people in this area are interested in, we’re hoping to expand. We have three or four really strong categories in nonfiction but we’re hoping to expand and get some more niche items and different kinds of books. We’ll also have a really large selection of children’s books and middle grade young adult books available as well.”
Stanton continued, “We’ll have a pretty extensive children’s section, lots of new fiction and nonfiction, but we’re hoping to expand to cover areas of interest for people in this area. Anytime we have a pop-up shop or an event in the community, we’re always asking people what they’re reading what they want to read. We actually do take those suggestions into consideration and will make those purchases.”
Hares and Hatters will be working with a host of local companies to make bookmarks, t-shirts, and other fun novelty items and accessories.
“We’re also in the process of planning several author events for the summer and hoping to ramp that up in the fall and winter as people’s books are coming out,” Stanton said. “We’re planning an event with Wendy Swore, she had a new middle (school) grade book come out. We’re hoping to have an (all ages) event here where you can purchase a ticket, visit with Wendy and make some crafts. The book has soccer players in it, so our semi-pro soccer team The Corvids have said that they really want to be a part of it.”
Both Stanton and Wood have been busy planning all the author visits that will take place over the summer and into the rest of the year with an Idaho Falls young romance author being featured in July along with a few different anthology authors that will come and visit from locations like Colorado and Salt Lake City.
Part of the inspiration for starting Hares and Hatters came from back in 2020 during the pandemic when many stores, including the iconic Powell’s Bookstore in Portland where Stanton’s family is located, were temporarily closing or going out of business. When the world finally began to slowly reopen, Stanton began seeking out independent bookstores and inquiring into the types of services they were offering to their communities.
“It was an opportunity to unplug from technology, visit and talk with people and I just thought I really would love to see that in our community,” Stanton said. “Part of my degree was writing about electronics and some of the things that books do to combat some of those negative side effects that happen with electronics. It’s been proven again and again to develop empathy in people and I thought I would love to live in a world where people are more empathetic.”
Stanton continued, “We can do that by sharing stories and that’s something that I can do. It’s not a big thing but if I can provide a space where people feel safe and welcome, can come in and visit, feel a sense of community and then take home something that allows them to think about the world differently and become a little more empathetic — if that’s something that I can bring to this community, I want to try.”
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