Essential Fairy Tales: Tom Thumb

This one from Eric Carle was published in 2011

Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a small cottage beside a great forest. They had a warm fire, a wooden table and a little garden by the door, but the cottage was very quiet because they had no child. One evening, the woodcutter’s wife looked at the empty chair beside the fire and sighed. “I would be happy with a child no bigger than my thumb,” she said, “if only we had one to love.”

I am sure the story of Tom Thumb is included in many fairy tale anthologies but I did not find any/many current versions. Most of the covers I have included here are for books that are out of print. 

1993

Gerda Muller 1984

The Tom Thumb story is one of the oldest recorded English fairy tales – a chapbook version by Richard Johnson was published in London around 1621, predating the Brothers Grimm by nearly two centuries. In the English tradition, Tom Thumb is a figure from Arthurian legend, known to King Arthur’s court, and his adventures involve giants, magicians, and the royal court. The Brothers Grimm published their own very similar version in 1812 under the title “Thumbling” (Däumling in German), in which the same tiny boy has adventures in the fields, is swallowed by animals, and eventually returns home. The basic pattern – a tiny boy born to childless parents who proves his worth through cleverness rather than size – is found across many cultures, from Issun-boshi in Japan to the Scandinavian Tommeliden.

Tom Thumb’s adventures typically involve his tiny size getting him into and out of extraordinary situations: being carried off by animals, hiding inside everyday objects, being swallowed by creatures far larger than himself, and using his voice and wit from inside places no one else could reach. He sells himself to strangers knowing he can escape through a mousehole; he is swallowed by a cow and calls out from her stomach; he ends up inside a wolf and uses the wolf to return to his parents. In each case it is his cleverness rather than his strength that saves him.  Source

The episodic form of this story reminded me of Pinocchio. 

I am not sure if we will keep this book on our essentials list but you might be thinking of this important reference: