Tom Thumb is a short story written by Charles Perrault and published in 1697 in a collection of stories entitled Tales of yesteryear.
The story tells us the story of the tiny Thumb, a child the size of the little finger of the hand. His parents were so poor that they had to abandon Thumb along with his six brothers in the forest, since they could not feed them.
Thanks to that, he and his brothers returned with the added luck that their parents had obtained an extra income and their economy had improved. However, over time, they returned to the same financial problems and repeated their plan to leave them. This time, Thumb was caught more off guard and instead of stones he was dropping bread crumbs. However, what our young protagonist did not fall into is that breadcrumbs are a delicacy for forest animals, who soon devoured them and all trace and hope of returning home was lost...
However, the ingenious Thumb had previously listened to his parents' plans, so he took a handful of white stones that he dropped along the way as they entered the forest, to leave a trail by which to return.