Fum is a fun rhyming adventure that takes us to Fairytale Land where we meet various well known and well loved characters who are helping family Crumb, a large family of giants, to find their smallest son.
The Story: The Crumbs can’t find Fum so they take a walk through Fairytale Land to look for him. Along the way they ask various characters to help them find him (although unseen by the family he is never too far away!). They finally find Fum and in true fairytale style live happily ever after.
Several of our favourite fairytale characters play a part in the story including The Three Bears and Red Riding Hood. More are hiding in Lucy Fleming’s wonderful illustrations but aren’t mentioned in the text (we love the troll fishing under the bridge and the shoe village).
A bouncy, easy to read rhyme moves the story along as we have fun looking for Fum who is hiding in all of the pictures (and thoroughly enjoying his game of hide and seek!).
The Crumbs (Mum, Dad, Grandpa and four children) are a friendly looking giant family who are enormous in comparison to the other characters. We love the way they’re portrayed in the illustrations, they’re obviously well loved by their neighbours who are happy to help them. More and more characters join the search throughout the book and one of our favourite illustrations shows characters big and small crossing a bridge. We also love the double page spread that shows Fairytale Land with a castle, the frog prince’s pond and the shoe village – there’s even a sighting of the Loch Ness Monster!
Fum would be a great book to include in a classroom fairytale topic. Children could add their favourite fairytale characters to a class book as well as suggest other hiding places for Fum. In a numeracy lesson the story could also be used to stimulate discussion about size and reinforce the use of big / small vocabulary. There is also lots of potential for counting, especially on the final party spread where we love the giant sized cupcakes! It would also be a great book to read to non native English speakers who will be able to join in and find Fum despite limited language skills.
Age Range: 3 +
Author: Karl Newson / Illustrator: Lucy Fleming
Thank you to Maverick books for sending Fum. It’s a fun story and we’d love to see The Crumb family in another book (although we’re wondering about the wolf’s intentions towards Fum on the page at the very end of the book!).
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