The Thing That Fed on the Quarrel: discussion sheet

Part Three: The Relationship · about 4 minutes to read aloud · Theme: conflict

Two workshops have shouted across a lane for years, and a soft creature grows fat on every hard word. A mediator helps them turn apologies into repairs.

Choose a question to talk over, or try the activity with words and pictures.

Start here

What does the Thing eat, and what does it look like when nobody feeds it?

Go further

The mediator will not sit anyone down together until she knows the quarrel has two sides. Why does that matter, and what should happen when it only has one?

Make something

Invent the rule the workshops write on their flat stone. It must leave room for deliveries to both doors. Draw the Thing beside the stone a month later.

Read The Thing That Fed on the Quarrel online: youngmachines.org/read/fables/the-thing-that-fed-on-the-quarrel/