Fantastic Mr. Fox — Chapter 5

About This Passage

These three sentences show us how long and hard Boggis, Bunce, and Bean have been digging. The hole is deep enough to hold a whole house — that is a picture a child can see. And yet the foxes are still safe at the bottom of their tunnel. Notice the last sentence: the farmers are ‘tired and cross.’ Those are small, plain words, and they tell us something important — the farmers are not only failing, they are starting to lose their tempers. This passage contains three of our vocabulary words: deep, tired, and cross.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 5 in four or five of your own sentences. Begin with Boggis, Bunce, and Bean still digging at sunrise; tell how Bean had the idea to fetch mechanical shovels; describe the two huge black tractors coming into the wood; tell what the Small Foxes saw when they noticed daylight at the end of their tunnel; and end with Mr Fox shouting ‘Dig for your lives!’

Discussion Questions

1. When the sun comes up, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are still digging and have made a hole so deep you could fit a house inside it. What in the story tells us how much Boggis, Bunce, and Bean want to catch Mr Fox, and how do you know they will not stop even though they are tired and cross?
2. Bean says, ‘I’m not giving in till I’ve strung him up over my front porch, dead as a dumpling!’ That is a strong and scary thing to say. What makes you think Bean feels so much more than just hunger or anger about Mr Fox, and what in the story shows you that Bean is the farmer who hates Mr Fox the most?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide