Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood

Title: Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood
Author : Artell, Mike
Illustrator: Harris, Jim
Publisher: Dial Books For Young Readers, 2001
Genre: Picture Book, Folk Tale, Traditional Literature
Age Range: 2-5th grade

Summary: This book is a twist on the traditional Little Red Riding Hood. Instead of Little Red Riding Hood being a wolf, he is a GATOR! His name is Claude. The granddaughter isn't a human girl either, she is a duck. When Petite Rouge is sent out by her mother (with her cat, TeJean) to take some food to her Grand-mere, she runs into a rock! But, the rock is ole trickster Claude. Claude goes to Grand-mere's house and scares Granny into the closet (which is even better for Claude.) When Petite Rouge and TeJean go to Grand-mere's house, they soon question what is wrong with her; green head, bumps, big mouth, and big teeth. That is when Petite and TeJean realized WHO Grand-mere was! The duo thought fast and TeJean tossed a bottle of hot sauce to Petite Rouge who squirted it on some boudin and lit Claude on fire! He was never seen bothering humans again! And of course, Grand-mere, Petite Rouge, and TeJean had a wonderful laugh about it!

Response: Classic Cajun dialect, influences from that region, rhyme, fun rhythm, and perfectly picturesque pictures brought this book to life! This was such a fun book. Artell and "Ten Little Dinosaurs" illustrator, Jim Harris made a perfect team for the laugh out loud book. I absolutely adored everything about it. My real father and his family were from Baton Rouge. And even though I have never met any of them (long story) my mom has still told me Cajun stories. I thought this book would be a fun one to check out because it always seems as if Gators make their way into Louisianan tales. This was a wonderful traditional take on Little Red Riding Hood. Reading silently does NOT do this book justice! It needs to be read outloud! I really, really enjoyed the extras that Artell included. The brief history of the Cajun people and Glossary took this book to a whole different level for me. I never knew many of those things before! The dedication also showed me how much love went into this book.

Teaching Ideas: There are so many ways that this book could become a classroom favorite. I would use this in my highschool classroom to teach effective use of dialect in writing. Huck Finn can become overused sometimes. Or why not use both to teach it? I also like the idea of teaching oral tales and/or traditional tales through this story. It would be neat to have students write poems, maybe 2-4 stanzas, in response to this book. I would allow my students to maybe choose a perspective of a character and how they felt after Claude ran off. This would also be a fun book to use in lower age classes. I would LOVE to see it acted out!

I found a neat website on fractured fairytales. Check it out! It has lots of suggestions on versions of traditional tales!

--jeana!