One of the biggest moments in Amanda Klousnitzer-Hutchens’ childhood was when her mom let her ride her bike to the Naper Blvd. Library all by herself at age 9.
“I have such a special place in my heart for (that library), I think because they had so many great programs there,” Klousnitzer-Hutchens said. “But I also specifically remember growing up — I grew up in the ’90s — they had a huge bookcase full of all of ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ (books), and I just boom, boom, boom, went through all of them.”
Her parents were big readers, too, and it was always a treat for her and her sister to go to the Nichols Library in downtown Naperville because they’d stop to get a black-and-white cookie at the old Tasty Bakery.
Now, the 37-year-old Yorkville resident wants to share that love of reading with others through her new mobile bookstore, The Fox and the Fable.
Born out of a love for teaching and a desire to use books to bring communities together, Klousnitzer-Hutchens will host her first bookstore event from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Solemn Oath Brewing in Naperville.
“We’re focusing on community events,” she said. “It’s a mix of curated new and used books, bookish gifts, so it’s more of like a fun browsing experience. It’s kind of designed to be surrounded by discovery, connection.”
In addition to selling books, Thursday’s event will feature a bookswap in which customers can trade books with each other.
She chose the name The Fox and the Fable as an homage to the Fox River and to the numerous fables with foxes in them.
“It felt so like full circle for my first official event to be in Naperville,” Klousnitzer-Hutchens said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this feels perfect. This is like where my reading journey began, and now I’m starting this new chapter and it’s going to be in Naperville.’ I was beyond excited.”
Despite her love for it, reading wasn’t something that always came naturally to Klousnitzer-Hutchens. When she was in first grade at Scott Elementary School, she struggled with learning how to do it and credits her teacher, Mrs. Steinberger, for not only giving her the one-on-one attention she needed but inspiring her to become a teacher.
Klousnitzer-Hutchens began her teaching career in 2011 in Urbana, where she was able to share her passion for reading with her elementary school students.
“I remember pre-pandemic, I would have students reading chapter books,” she said. “We would be doing lit circles. We would be doing our own little book clubs. And these would just be like the highlight of my day. They were so fun, and these kids were so engaged.”
That changed during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“You go from spending eight hours a day with students, really getting to know them, getting to know their families, feeling connected to them,” Klousnitzer-Hutchens said. “The next year, I had a brand new class of fourth-graders, and I had never met them in person. I did not know them. I did not know their families.”
Online learning was hard, she said. Students would frequently keep their microphones and cameras off during class time to not draw attention to distractions in their homes. Other students would fall asleep during class. Instead of reading circles, Klousnitzer-Hutchens had to settle for pre-filmed read-alouds that she would share through Google Classroom, hoping the kids were watching and engaging with the material.
When students returned from online learning, Klousnitzer-Hutchens knew something was off. Her students “could not read more than a couple pages without getting bored or getting distracted,” she said. It was difficult to witness.
At the same time, she said she was having a “book renaissance.” As an adult, she would read two to three books a month. During the pandemic, she was reading a book a day and sharing her love of reading with her friends, she said.
“So we start reading books together and doing virtual book clubs and buddy reading books together and sharing book recommendations,” Klousnitzer-Hutchens said. “… I thought that was such an interesting dichotomy between the two.”
She left behind her teaching job in 2023 to spend more time with her 8-year-old daughter and moved to Yorkville in 2024. But her desire to spark a love of reading in others never left her, she said.
In spring 2025, Klousnitzer-Hutchens went on a book retreat organized by one of her friends in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where she saw a mobile book store for the first time.
“I was just blown away. I’m like, ‘I want to do this. This is so cool. I just love that,’” she said.
“I got home, I turned to my husband and I was like, ‘What do you think about this?’ And as someone who also loves reading, he’s like, ‘I love it. Let’s do it. Come on.’ So we just kind of fully went in,” she said.
In August, the pair bought a trailer with money they’d saved over the summer. She put in shelves to hold 700 to 800 books from a variety of genres, lined it with carpet and hung literary-themed pictures.
Each month, Klousnitzer-Hutchens plans to donate a portion of the money she makes to a local charity. For March, the beneficiary will be The Lifespring Center in Aurora in honor of Women’s History Month.
Ultimately the goal is to help people ignite or reignite their love of reading and to see that reading doesn’t always have to be a solitary activity, she said.
“Books have always brought people together,” she said. “And I just was like, ‘Let’s put it on wheels. Let me bring them it on wheels. Let me bring them to you.’”