Taught Not To Tell: A Friendship Poem for Kids About Childhood and Prejudice

A friendship poem for kids exploring prejudice, using fruit as a metaphor.

Taught Not To Tell Oh Pamela Peach I’ve told you - Don’t’ play with Nectarine Nell! her mother would say That Nectarine Nell She’s not one of us Her skin is all smooth and ours is all fuzz Nectarine Nell I’ve told you - Don’t play with Pamela Peach! her mother would say

That Pamela Peach She’s not one of us Our skin is all smooth and hers is all fuzz But Pamela Peach and Nectarine Nell ignored both their Mums They learned not to tell … the fun that they had the secrets they shared the pride that they found from being compared Mark Bird

🍑 Creative Writing & Poetry Ideas (A Friendship Poem for Kids)

In Taught Not To Tell, fruit becomes a mirror for human difference—and how friendship can overcome learned prejudice. This friendship poem for kids invites children to think about what makes us different on the outside, and what makes us similar on the inside. Use it as a springboard for writing from the point of view of unlikely friends: an apple and an onion, a tomato and a turnip, a star and a cloud. Encourage children to imagine what their characters are told not to do—and how they might resist those expectations. Writing poetry like this opens space for children to explore themes of belonging, kindness, and courage, using gentle metaphor and humour to understand deeper truths.

Creative Writing and Poetry Worksheets for Teachers:

Taught_Not_To_Tell_Worksheet.docx

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Growing up, we’re often told who to befriend and who to avoid. "Stick with your own kind," they say, often without ever really saying it outright. That undercurrent of social separation—based on class, background, culture, or even something as trivial as “fuzziness”—inspired my poem Taught Not To Tell. It’s a short piece with fruity characters, yes, but the undercurrent is something much deeper. Pamela Peach and Nectarine Nell represent the innocent resistance children often display in the face of inherited prejudice.

I wanted the structure of the poem to mirror the way children internalise adult rules. The repetition in the warnings from both mothers feels like a chant or an ingrained lesson—passed down, unquestioned, and rigid. But even within that framework, Pamela and Nell find their own path. They break the imposed binary of fuzz and smooth, and instead create something shared—secret, proud, and quietly rebellious. The poem’s gentle rhythm and playful tone act as a kind of camouflage for a more serious message: kids are taught division, they don’t invent it.

What I love most about writing this piece was allowing Nell and Pamela to choose each other despite everything. Their friendship is a quiet act of defiance, not loud or confrontational, but deeply significant. I hope readers smile at the imagery, but also pause and reflect on how early—and how subtly—those lines of separation get drawn. Maybe, just maybe, we can all unlearn them a little, too.

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Please share your own friendship poem for kids in the Comments below.

Friendship Poem For Kids: Taught Not To Tell

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