We did not expect the line.
Kids started gathering around the Mysh station at Toronto Harbourfront and just kept coming. Some waited half an hour. Not to ride something or win a prize. Just to get a turn to tell a story.
That was the moment we knew something real was happening.
How it started
The Forest of Reading is one of the biggest literacy events in Canada, run by the Ontario Library Association every year. Thousands of young readers come through over the course of the event, and this year we were there with a quiet little secret.
Founders Neil Vidyarthai and Lauren Dugan, with Brandon Corrigan, set up at Harbourfront with a very simple offer: come build a character, make a hero, and see where the story goes. We were showing something we had been building for a long time but had not yet released. A sneak peek for kids who had never heard of us.
We had no idea what to expect. We got 400 stories.
“The future should belong to the boundless imagination of kids. I have always believed every one of us has a great story. I saw it that day.” – Neil Vidyarthi, CEO of Mysh
The kids who waited
The line formed on its own. Kids saw what other kids were doing and wanted in. They watched characters appear on screen and stories take shape, and they got curious. So they waited.
What they were waiting for was a chance to make something that was entirely theirs. A hero with a name they picked. A pet only they could dream up. A story that had never existed before and never would again in quite the same way.
By the end of the weekend, over 400 completely original stories had been built. Four hundred characters, worlds, and adventures created by kids, in minutes, at a reading festival in Toronto.
“They whipped together such wild, hilarious, moving, personal stories. The power of a kid’s imagination with the right tools is something else entirely.”
The part we did not see coming
The stories were incredible. Magical worlds, ridiculous powers, sidekicks that made no sense and were perfect because of it. Adventures that started serious and turned absurd and then somehow became personal.
But the thing that genuinely got to us was what happened between the kids.
Children who had never met were leaning over to look at each other’s screens. They were cheering for each other’s characters, building on each other’s ideas, making suggestions, getting excited when someone’s hero came together just right. Strangers became friends over a shared story in about four minutes.
We build Mysh because we believe in what kids can create when you give them the right space to do it. Watching that play out in real time, between real kids, at a literacy event on a sunny day in Toronto, was something none of us will forget quickly.
“The very special part was how encouraging and connected the children became with each other, supporting each other’s creations, building upon them, making new friends.”
What we took away from it
The Forest of Reading showed us something we had hoped was true but needed to see. Kids do not need to be passive. They do not need to be entertained by something someone else made. Given the space and the tools, they will create things that surprise the adults standing right next to them.
Most of what children interact with on screens is built for consumption. Watch this, react to this, follow this. Mysh is built around the opposite idea. Imagine this, decide this, write this. The difference in what it produces in kids is visible almost immediately, and we saw it play out across two full days at Harbourfront.
We are grateful to the Ontario Library Association and the Centre for Social Innovation for having us. And we are grateful to every kid who waited in that line, made a character, and showed us what they were capable of.
What comes next
Mysh is out now, and moments like this are exactly why we keep showing up in person. These were kids with no familiarity with the brand and no reason to be generous with us. They just saw something, got curious, waited, and created something they were proud of.
We want more of that. So we will keep bringing Mysh to events, libraries, and classrooms, not just online, because watching a kid build their first character in person is still the best way we know to show people what this is.
If you give kids the chance to create, they will surprise you every time.
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