Rabbit Ears Entertainment pops into Norwalk retail

A noted publisher of children’s classics, Rabbit Ears Entertainment LLC has been quietly located in Norwalk for decades. Rabbit Ears’ works are noted for beautifully illustrated storybooks and companion videos featuring celebrity readers like John Cleese, Holly Hunter, Robin Williams, Glenn Close and Garrison Keillor.

In mid-November, Rabbit Ears will launch a pop-up shop at 114 Washington St. in South Norwalk, once the site of the home decoration store Sassafras. The store will operate seven days a week through the holidays unless their inventory is depleted

“This is the first time to my knowledge that we’ve ever had a freestanding retail store,” said Deborah Weingrad, president of Rabbit Ears. “We decided to open a holiday pop-up store for the next couple of months since we have a huge inventory of hardcover books, CDs, DVDs, and, for those with legacy formats we also have VHS tapes and audio cassettes alongside the paperbacks.”

Rabbit Ears currently sells much of its inventory through its online catalogue, but in recent years has shifted to digital distribution through streaming services and selling print-on-demand paperback copies of books through Amazon. The move online has lessened the need for holding on to a large physical inventory even as many titles remain popular.

“All of the hardcover books that we’re selling were originally distributed through an educational publishing company and they’re in a hardcover library format since they were distributed to schools and libraries initially,” Weingrad explained.

Those library-grade hardcovers are being sold for what may be the last time. Paperback copies of illustrated versions of classics like “The Ballad of John Henry,” “Pecos Bill,” “The Velveteen Rabbit,” “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and Goldilocks and the Three Bears artists will remain available through print-on-demand services, but the store itself holds the back catalog.

Other items of interest to both collectors and those looking for unique items for a child’s room include autographed posters featuring art from various titles, a handful of LPs from the earliest Rabbit Ears recordings, bundled instructional kits for classroom use, and various other ephemera accumulated over decades of children’s publishing.

Many of the recordings used in Rabbit Ears productions were made around the corner from the pop-up store at the former Palace Theater where Weingrad and her family operated a production center for many years.

Weingrad is also scheduling entertainment at her store.

“We’re planning on having a children’s story hour, probably on Tuesdays at 10:30,” she said. “It will be somewhere that parents and caregivers can bring children, I’m bringing in some more carpeting for the floor, so I or another reader can sit in this little rocking chair and read a couple stories for an hour.”

Weingrad is excited to make use of the space as a bookstore because Norwalk has been without a commercial bookstore since the closure of the Connecticut Avenue Barnes and Noble.

“I feel that the small bookstore is a dying breed,” she said, “so it’s kind of fun to be able to have one here.”