The Little Girl Who Snapped Her Pencil in Half

There once was a little girl

Who was so mad

She snapped her pencil in half

The pencil was very upset

As you can imagine

Because it had not done anything

To make the little girl angry

‘Little girl,’ the pencil said,

Now in two pieces

And talking out of its eraser,

‘Why did you snap me in half?’

The little girl was so angry

She did not even want to answer

The snapped-in-half pencil

Because sometimes when you’re mad

You feel as though you don’t want

To talk about being mad

But the little girl could see

That the pencil was hurt

And this made the little girl feel bad

That meant that she was mad and felt bad

And those two things are not good things to feel
Especially when you feel both of them at once

The pencil was hurt

But it could see

That the little girl was hurt too

So it decided to ask her

What she was so mad about

And she told him

That her teacher wouldn’t call on her

Even though she knew the answer

To the question being asked

And that made her feel like

She wasn’t being listened to

And whenever she doesn’t feel listened to

She gets very angry

The pencil understood

All about that

Because sometimes

In the pencil case

That the little girl keeps in her desk

The crayons and markers

Are talking to each other

And the pencil has something to say

But nobody seems

To want to hear it

And the pencil sharpens itself

All the while feeling left out

The little girl realized

That sometimes she feels like

A pencil trying to talk

To crayons and markers

And sometimes the pencil

Feels like a little girl

Not getting called on

In a classroom

Even though she knows the answer

The little girl doesn’t want

To hurt anybody

When she’s angry

But she doesn’t know

What to do when she feels

That feeling

And snapping a pencil in half

Seemed like something

She could do quietly

So nobody would notice

That she was mad

As she explained this

To the pencil

She carefully taped it back in half

Even though a snapped in half pencil
Can never really be

Not snapped in half

The pencil and the little girl

Talked about all the things she could do

When she feels mad

The pencil suggested

That talking about being mad

Might be the best thing to do

The little girl noticed

That she did feel better

After talking about being mad

And when she was done

Taping up the pencil

She went to talk to her teacher
Who explained the little girl

That the reason she didn’t call on her

Was because she knew

That the little girl knew the answer

And she wanted

To give one of the other students a turn

That made the little girl

Feel much better

But she still felt bad

About snapping the pencil in half

The pencil told her

That once he was back in the case

All the crayons and markers

Wanted to talk to him

About how he was snapped in half

And that gave him a chance

To talk to them about how he often feels left out
And the crayons and markers apologized

Because they didn’t realize

How he was feeling

And they promised to do better

So even though the pencil was snapped in half

And the little girl did the snapping

Both ended up with a way

To talk about what to do

When they feel mad or upset

And that felt very valuable

Even more valuable

Than the expensive colored pencil set

That the little girl’s mother gifted her with

When she came home

For getting a good grade

On one of her tests

That last part isn’t all that important

But it did make the little girl happy

And I thought it might

Make you happy as well