How the Floor Friends Children’s Book Series Is Celebrating Canadians Living in Apartment Communities

Jackie Burns felt something was missing from the children’s literature that she was reading to her two young boys, who are now teenagers, when they were growing up. In a fundamental way, the stories didn’t seem to reflect her family’s lifestyle living in an urban high-rise building in Toronto.

“Children’s literature has long been shaped by an idealized version of childhood that centres on single-family homes with yards. A white-picket fence on a tree-lined street has historically been the default setting in kids’ books,” says Burns, a writer, editor and condo dweller who raised her kids in a multi-family community.

“I wanted to show that multi-family living is a rich and meaningful setting for children’s stories and very relevant, with millions of Canadian households sharing this lived experience. Home is built on community, not walls or yards,” she adds.

To address the lack of representation of multi-family living in children’s books, Burns began writing The Condo Kids, a children’s series set in these communities. “Adventure is just an elevator ride away for my boys and their neighbours, and I wanted to capture their positive childhood experience on the page,” she says. “I believe children deserve to see themselves in the stories they read and feel included in storytelling.”

Burns’s new book, Priya’s Pets, is the latest chapter in the author’s efforts to change the landscape of children’s literature for the better. It’s the second book in the Floor Friends series, which was born of a partnership with Starlight Investments, a leading developer and provider of purpose-built rental housing across Canada. Together, they launched the first book in the series, Ivan’s Garden of Hope, in 2024.

The new book, illustrated by Ana Patankar, tells the story of Priya, a young girl who has earned a reputation in her apartment building as something of an animal whisperer. But while Priya has dutifully taken care of animals of all kinds in the past, shenanigans ensue when she’s tasked with pet-sitting an energetic schnauzer named Nick, owned by the wisest old woman in her apartment building. Fortunately for Priya, she has a host of “floor friends” to help her retrieve the wayward canine before her neighbour’s return and fast-approaching 100th-birthday celebration.

“The Priya’s Pets storyline highlights the collaboration and sense of belonging found in apartment living,” explains Burns. “It is also a powerful reminder that we can all learn from each other, no matter how young or old we may be. Connection, trust and support can create something deep and meaningful within multi-family communities where different generations and demographics share the same roof.”

Priya’s Pets builds on the success of Burns’s earlier Condo Kids project, which put the author on Starlight’s radar a few years back. “Our partnership with Jackie grew from a shared belief that housing is about more than buildings. It’s about the people inside them,” says Gwen McGuire, Starlight’s Director of Communications. “We discovered Jackie’s Condo Kids series and were immediately drawn to her ability to capture the vibrant ‘it-takes-a-village’ reality of multi-family living,” she continues.

Like Burns, McGuire agrees that multi-family communities are underrepresented in children’s literature. She sees this collaboration as a way to change that. “We believe it’s vital to normalize and celebrate urban rental living,” McGuire adds. “By filling this gap, we want to help ensure that the children across Canada see their own lives reflected and validated in the stories they read.”

Starlight Investments has done more than just commission these Floor Friends books; its diverse communities have served as the inspiration for the characters and narratives found within Burns’s stories, too. Before putting pen to paper, Burns spoke to numerous families in Starlight’s purpose-built rental communities. “Talking with these kids over the years and seeing their excitement about the series has been an absolute joy,” says Burns.

Along the way, the new series has been central to Starlight’s resident and community engagement activities across its Canadian properties. As with Ivan’s Garden of Hope, which was recognized with a Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario 2025 Impact Award, copies of Priya’s Pets are being gifted to thousands of residents in Starlight rental communities across the country. Already, Burns says the response has been strong.

“We are literally putting stories into the hands of the children who inspired them,” she says. “At a recent Priya’s Pets book reading, two sisters brought books they had written for me after being inspired by Ivan’s Garden of Hope.”