“You are never too small to make a difference” – Greta Thunberg                           Leading authors, musicians, and drag queens will help kids aged 2-8 build a sustainable city at our 12th Annual TOTSAPALOOZA Festival on Saturday, February 1st, 2-4pm, at Revival Nightclub (783 College). A limited number of deeply discounted Early Bird tickets are now available: click here.

Acclaimed drag performers and arts educators Fay Slift and Fluffy Souffle will host the festivities and conduct a special edition of their much-loved Drag Queen Storytime.

Eric Hogan and Tara Hungerford have adapted their hit CBC-Kids TV show Scout and The Gumboot Kids into a set of four picture books. They’ll launch the books with Juno award-winning singer-songwriter, Jessie Farrell, and full-sized mascots of the show’s stars, mouse duo Scout and Daisy.

Taking a cue from Scout and Daisy’s exploration of nature’s mysteries, we’ll run an environmentally-themed edition of our popular model city-building project Mouse City. Future urban planners can create a valley city out of craft materials and recyclables.

Author James Gladstone and illustrator Gary Clement will present their gorgeous new book My Winter City. Don’t miss Emmy Award-winning writers Susan McLennan and Mike Erskine-Kellie‘s debut picture book, I Got You A Present! .

TOTSAPALOOZA 12 will feature perennial audience favourites like a Pop-Up Bakery by Kensington Market mainstay Wanda’s Pie-in- the Sky, whose healthy, homemade treats will fuel partygoers of all ages. The Children’s Book Bank is joining us again this year as a community partner.

A limited number of deeply discounted, Early Bird tickets (Adults $10 / Kids $5) are now available. When they sell out, regular prices (Adult $15/Kids $10) go into effect. Why wait and pay full price?

To get your Early Bird tickets, click here

TOTSAPALOOZA sells out every single year.

This past week our Directors of Urban Planning Education, Alexander Furneaux and Marcia Garnes (above), attended the Ontario Professional Planners Institute Conference to share what they’ve discovered working on Mouse City, our model city-building program, with fellow urban planners from across the province.

Aligning with the conference’s focus on sustainable city-building, Alexander and Marcia told the story of Mouse City Valley – a six-week program we ran last year in partnership with Evergreen Brick Works. It gave kids a chance to explore how storybook mice might build themselves a city that respects the environmental significance of valley landscapes in urban centres such as Toronto (photos below).

Through the presentation, planners learned about the importance of engaging children in city-building, and tools to consult them in ways that are fun, creative, and accessible. Attendees were captivated by the stories and structures children created at Mouse City Valley. Alexander and Marcia showed the crowd how to transform such program materials into feedback that can be used to inform the policy and design that shapes cities.