By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
From October 4 to October 5, the Royal Botanical Gardens’ (RBG) Hendrie Park will host the 17th annual Telling Tales Festival.
Previously held at Westfield Heritage Village, the event was split with the RBG in 2019, before moving to Hendrie Park for both days in 2022.
Heather Kanabe, executive director of Telling Tales, spoke about the importance of holding the event outdoors.
“There was a real understanding from its starting point that kids do well in the outdoors and in nature,” Kanabe said. “It’s a place to regulate and feel good, and so that environmental literacy piece was always a really important part of why it was created the way it was.”
Kanabe elaborated on the event’s founder, Susan Jasper, and the inspiration behind the festival.
“Susan had been working in the publishing industry, and there was this recognition that there were no literary events that were made just for kids and their families,” Kanabe explained. “So the hope was to create something that really expressed the magic of literature, inspired imagination, and built connections that hopefully encouraged children to pick up a book.”
Telling Tales is Canada’s largest children’s book festival, with 2025’s event featuring 50 authors and illustrators comprising the main lineup, along with various musicians, dancers, and performing artists.
Seven of the main guests at the festival are local to Halton and Hamilton, 33 are from elsewhere in Ontario, and 10 are from outside the province.
“Each of our festival tents is themed by age and has different reading material that suits that age group,” Kanabe said. “So 0–6, 6–8, 9–12, and 13+. The 50 authors and illustrators that we have are then presenting at each of those tents. Each tent has different activities that engage kids in sensory play and sensory engagement, and are specific to their age groups.”
The main stage is where the festival headliners will speak or perform. Kanabe previewed the headliners for each day.
“On the first day of the festival, we have Tanya Tagaq, who will be joining us with her newest book, I Would Give You My Tail,” Kanabe said. “She is an award-winning throat singer, opera creator, author of adult books, kind of everything you can imagine, [she is a] very multi-talented person, and she will be doing a throat singing performance together with a colleague that she’s bringing from Ottawa. And then on Sunday, our headliner is Matthew Forsythe. He is the character designer for Adventure Time, so that might be a big draw for some of those parents also looking for their own kind of fan experience.”
The festival will also feature a book swap, author signings, puppet shows, interactive walks hosted by BurlingtonGreen, and free access to the RBG.
Telling Tales organizers have worked closely with an occupational therapist and accessibility consultant to design a “sensory-friendly festival.”
“We have both quiet and active spaces that are designated, so that as a parent of any child, including a neurodivergent child, there are ways that you can easily navigate the festival,” Kanabe said. “From an accessibility perspective, we also located all of our festival stages close by to other activities that relate to that age group.”
Accessibility has been a continuous two-year project for the festival’s organizers.
“When I came to the festival three years ago, it was clear that kids’ needs were evolving,” Kanabe noted. “And the idea that kids sit crisscross applesauce for an author engagement was maybe not everything that they would want or need.”
Since adopting a more accessible approach, attendance for the festival jumped 100% to 12,000 people.
Kanabe said that Telling Tales employs a selection advisory committee when deciding on the authors and illustrators featured in their annual planning.
“That committee includes nine different individuals from our community who were incorporated based on the most diverse, lived social experience as well as their engagement with storytelling, books, and literature,” Kanabe described.
The committee is chaired by both the Hamilton and Burlington public libraries.
The festival lineup is made up of creatives featured in those groups’ regular programming and is meant to be the “best representation of that full list,” according to Kanabe.
She spoke about why reading is still important for kids, despite the many different ways they can be entertained.
“We’re in an interesting time, where there’s certainly a lot of things that are accessible to kids to entertain or engage them,” Kanabe said. “But there is a really strong correlation between picking up a book and reading, and wellness. And so I think more than ever before, finding ways to encourage kids to feel comfortable picking up a book and making that accessible and cool is really important.”
Kanabe said that hosting the event on the weekend is deliberate and is meant to encourage parents, guardians, and kids to bond over the act of reading.
“The other day I was chatting with someone who said that going to the festival with her granddaughter encouraged her to pick up a book again,” Kanabe said. “Her granddaughter asked her, ‘What are you reading?’ So, coming out of the festival, the whole family ended up reading more together.”
