Fantastic Mr. Fox — Chapter 3

About This Passage

This passage was chosen because it is the most suspenseful moment in Chapter 3 and it shows Mr Fox's whole survival method working under real pressure. Dahl moves slowly: a glint, a speck, something watching, something moving, something coming up — and only then the answer (the barrel of a gun). The passage contains three vocabulary words (glint, barrel, moonlight) in their original setting.

Narration Prompt

In four or five sentences, retell Chapter 3 in order: Mrs Fox asks Mr Fox for two fat ducks, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean hide downwind from the fox hole so they can't be smelled, Mr Fox creeps out and notices a glint, he jumps back just as the guns fire, he loses his tail, and the three farmers decide to dig the fox family out.

Discussion Questions

1. Mrs Fox asks for 'two fat ducks' — one for her and Mr Fox, and one for the children. What in the story tells us she is thinking of the whole family and not just herself, and how is the way Mr Fox and Mrs Fox talk to each other different from the way Boggis, Bunce, and Bean talk to each other?
2. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean put themselves where the wind would NOT carry their smell to Mr Fox. How do you know they have been watching him carefully enough to figure out his trick, and what does this show about how dangerous they are becoming?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide