The Ribbon Forest

In the Ribbon Forest, the trees are covered not with leaves but with long, glossy ribbons in red, blue, yellow and pink. Faye, a ten-year-old guardian with chestnut hair and a rainbow ribbon braided into it, walks the paths each morning beside her best friend Pip, a tiny sky-blue songbird wearing a pink ribbon around his neck. Together they greet every tree, and the trees rustle back as if wishing them good morning.

One sunny day visitors come to admire the colorful trees, and some begin filling their baskets with ribbons, led by a tall woman named Mrs. Thorne. Faye gently warns them that the ribbons are the trees' leaves, but the visitors keep taking them, and the forest grows barer day after day. Faye thinks hard about how to help, and with Pip's help she decides to invite everyone to a Ribbon Festival, where people can look, sing, dance and admire the ribbons gently instead of carrying them away. This tale by Yavuz DEMİRKIRAN can be read on Online Masal.