Kids learn about the figurative and literal aspects of city-building at the Mouse City Summit.
Organized by the literary events series Small Print Toronto, yesterday’s Mouse City Summit at The Gladstone Hotel gave kids, aged two to eight, an early lesson in urban planning by having them build a city for mice out of recycled household materials. Around a long table stacked with old coffee tins, milk cartons and egg crates, the precocious tots and their parents constructed buildings for make-believe mice. Limited only by their imaginations, the kids used crayons, paper, scissors and glue to build everything from mouse houses and apartments to pottery works, water towers and rocket-ship launching pads.
From the tales of Fievel to Stuart Little, mice have long been the subject of children’s literature, and the kids at Mouse City Summit were treated to readings by Spacing magazine’s Matthew Blackett (who, ironically, read Jan Brett’s Town Mouse Country Mouse, about a little rodent who tries to escape the frantic city) and author Roslyn Schwartz, who read a book from her new series, The Vole Brothers.
After story-time, Blackett and Torontoist editor Hamutal Dotan helped the kids place their constructions on a city grid to complete their mouse metropolis. Overall, the well-behaved bunch got a chance to build a city of their own while learning a bit about urban planning in the process—a prospect that no doubt pleased their parents. “I think the kids here come from parents who are concerned with the city and more politically aware,” said Small Print co-director Natalie Kertes. “And it’s great because it’s educational and creative, and these parents want their kids to be involved in things like civic engagement, because that’s the way they’re trying to raise their families.”
With the success of yesterday’s event, Kertes is hoping that those civic-minded parents, and many others, will make it out to February’s Totsapalooza, which will be Mouse City–themed.
For a closer look at some Mouse City creations, click on the gallery below:
