When It Happened to Me: Marleigh's Story Behind Perri's Pencil Problem

Every book has an origin. For Perri's Pencil Problem, that origin is a real memory, one that stayed with its author, Marleigh Brown, for decades before it finally found its way onto the page.

This is that story.

The Moment That Started It All

Marleigh was in elementary school, sitting in class, just trying to learn like any other kid. She had an afro, full and natural and hers. At some point during the school day, a classmate put pencils into her hair without asking. Without thinking. As if her hair were a curiosity, an object, rather than a part of who she was.

She remembers the feeling more than the exact words that followed. The embarrassment. The confusion. The sense of not knowing quite what to do or say. And the silence of the adults around her, who either did not notice or did not know how to respond.

"I did not have the words for what happened to me back then. I just knew something was wrong, and somehow, I was the one who felt ashamed."

The Years In Between

Like many children who experience microaggressions, Marleigh did not have a framework for processing what had happened. There was no book to read about it. No classroom conversation that validated her experience. No adult who sat down with her and said: your hair is beautiful, your feelings are real, and what happened was not okay.

So she carried it quietly.

As she grew up and began to understand more about race, identity, and the way small moments of harm accumulate over a lifetime, she started to see that childhood experience through a new lens. It had a name now. It had context. And she started to wonder what might have been different if someone had handed her a story that reflected her truth.

Writing the Book She Needed

That wondering eventually became a mission. Marleigh began writing Perri's Pencil Problem not just as a story, but as a gift: the book she wished she could have handed to her younger self.

She wanted young readers to open it and feel, immediately and without question, that their hair is beautiful. That their feelings are valid. That their voice matters. She wanted Black girls in particular to see themselves centered in a story where their experience is taken seriously, not minimized or explained away.

She also wanted to give caregivers and educators a tool. Something concrete to put in their hands so that the conversations that did not happen for her could happen for the next generation.

What Representation Actually Does

When a child opens a book and sees a character who looks like them, facing something they have faced, and handling it with dignity and strength, something shifts. It is not just a nice feeling. It is a message the child receives about their own worth.

The absence of that representation sends its own message, too. When children only ever see themselves reflected in stories where their identity is the problem, or the punchline, or invisible altogether, it shapes how they understand their place in the world.

Marleigh wrote Perri to change that, one classroom at a time.

For Anyone Who Recognizes This Story

If you are reading this and a memory is surfacing, some version of a moment where you felt small because of how you looked or where you came from or who you were, you are not alone. A lot of us are carrying those moments.

What Marleigh hopes this book and this movement can do is take some of that weight off. Not by erasing what happened, but by building something better for the children who come after us.

That is the whole point of Say Something Sweet.