Zola Notices Everything

  Brave can be tiny

Zola tried one bite of something orange

Zola holding up one small bite of orange sweet potato on a fork, looking brave

It was a roasted sweet potato. It was orange, and squishy, and not on the list of things Zola eats.

Her safe foods were already on her plate — crackers, apple slices, the good cheese — so nothing was at stake. She smelled it. She touched it with one finger. She put a very small amount on a spoon and had a taste.

The verdict: “Huh. It's not scary.”

She did not eat the rest of it, and nobody asked her to. That wasn't the point. The point was that she found out, on her own terms, with her anchors beside her.

Try it this week: Put one new food next to the safe ones. No pressure to eat it. Some weeks just looking at it is the whole win.

Zola's word hunt

Five words from this story are hiding in the grid. They read across → and down ↓ — never backwards. Tap the first letter, then the last letter.Circle each word when you find it.

O
W
O
R
A
N
G
E
H
T
L
C
S
I
B
B
U
R
C
E
C
I
R
B
C
I
D
L
X
M
A
I
L
E
J
Y
N
Q
V
T
T
D
Z
O
L
A
E
E
U
X
D
R
Q
B
D
D
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Z
  • ZOLA
  • ORANGE
  • TRIED
  • BITE
  • BRAVE

A Zola Notices Everything story · zolanoticeseverything.com · Free to print for home and classroom

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