Sunday, March 6, 2011

Petite Rouge a Cajun Red Riding Hood


Author:  Mike Artell
Genre:  Traditional or Folk Literature

This story is the Cajun version of red riding hood.  The dialect is really different in this story.  It’s in a Cajun dialect.  In the beginning of the book there is a glossary of what certain words mean in the book.  A lot of the words used are French words.  The book sticks with the traditional story line but the characters are different.  A duck is red riding hood and instead of a wolf, a gator is being the antagonist.  The mother duck sent a cat along with the duck to take food to his grand’ mere.  They take a boat through the swamp.  The food was different.  It was Cajun food but mainly seafood.  At the end of the book, to get rid of the gator the cat threw hot sauce to the duck and the duck poured it on sausage and threw it in the gators mouth.  The sausage was so hot the gator had to jump in the water to cool off.  After that, he stayed away from the duck and cat.  The grand’ mere, the duck and cat ate their food and were happy.

I would use this story as a read aloud and to show how different parts of the country have different variations of traditional stories.  Then I would have my students compare and contrast the original story with this story and how they different and are the same.  We would make a chart on the board of the differences.  This read aloud could be an introduction for learning about the Cajun culture and where it comes from and how it is today.  I would take a vote to see which version of the little red riding hood the students like best.

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