Asha gives up a bad habit!

Illustrators: Sonal Goyal, Sumit Sakhuja Asha was a very clever girl. She helped her mother in the kitchen and in the garden, looked after her younger brother and was always early to school. However she had one bad habit! She always chewed her pencils right up to the end. Her mother tried to correct her," Asha, it is wrong to chew pencils. You will spoil your health" But Asha loved the taste of the wood and the black lead inside. Chew..chew...chew Her father tried to break the habit, "Asha it is a bad habit . You will fall sick." But Asha continued to chew...chew..chew.. Asha's parents went to school one day and told the teacher of her habit of chewing pencils. Mrs. Shanthi was a kind teacher and thought of a way to change Asha. The next day was the class picnic. Mrs. Shanthi took all the children to a pencil factory. The children were very happy to see the pencils in different colours! Red! Blue! Yellow! Green! The pencils were so pretty! Mrs. Shanthi then took them to a place in the pencil factory where there was a big pile of trees on the floor. "Children, do you see these trees?" "Yes Miss", they all shouted. " This is where your pencils come from" The children were very surprised. "Do pencils come from trees"? they asked. "Yes" "Every pencil you buy or break represents a tree that has been cut to make new pencils" " The more pencils we use, the more trees we are destroying. One day we will not have any trees left" On the way back home in the bus, Asha was very quiet. Every tree she saw looked like hundreds of pencils in her mind! In a few days there was a big change in Asha. Can you guess what? Asha did not chew pencils anymore!