Penny Plants a Forest
On the edge of a bare and windy hill lived a little girl named Penny. The hill had no trees at all — just grass and stones and the lonely whistle of the wind.
“This hill needs a tree,” Penny decided one morning. “So I’ll plant one.”
She found a single acorn, dug a little hole, tucked it in, and patted the soil. “Grow well,” she whispered.
The next day she found another acorn. And another. Every morning, Penny climbed the hill with a pocketful of acorns and planted them one by one, season after season, year after year.
The wind blew. The rain fell. The sun shone. And slowly — so slowly you could hardly see it — tiny green shoots began to appear.
Penny grew taller, and so did the trees. The shoots became saplings. The saplings became trees. The trees dropped their own acorns, which grew into more trees, and those trees dropped acorns too.
Many years later, an old woman named Penny sat in the cool green shade of an enormous forest — a forest full of birdsong and squirrels and dappled golden light. Children played among the trees. Deer rested in the ferns.
A little boy looked up at her. “Who planted all these trees?” he asked.
Penny smiled. “Someone who believed that one small acorn was worth planting,” she said. “Would you like to plant one too?”
And she pressed an acorn into his small, eager hand.
The end. 🌳
Talk about it together
- How did one acorn turn into a whole forest?
- What is one small good thing you could start today?
- Who might enjoy something you plant or build, long after you?