#17-Petite Rouge

 Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood

Written by Mike Artell

Illustrated by Jim Harris

Puffin Books, 2001

23 Pages

Traditional Literature

   This book is a cajun version of Little Red Ridding Hood. In this version Petite Rouge, a goose, is given the task to take food to her sick Grand-mere. While she is traveling through the swamp she comes across Claude the gator. Claude tries to get her to share her food, but Petite Rouge scares him off with her pole. Claude is very mad and decides to swim ahead of Petite Rouge and sneaks into Grand-mere's house and scares Grand-mere into the closet. He then disguises himself as Grand-mere and lays in her bed. When Petite Rouge arrives she soon figures out that she is being tricked by Claude. Claude then tries to eat Petite Rouge, but TeJean, her cat, plays a trick on Claude. TeJean throws Petite Rouge a piece of boudin that is covered in hot sauce and Claude eats it and has to jump in the swamp to cool his mouth. Claude never bothers Petite Rouge or her Grand-mere ever again.

     Harris used watercolor and pencil to create the illustrations for this book. Harris uses a lot of negative space in the book to help emphasizes things. For example most of the illustrations are double page spreads with full illustrations on both pages but on some pages he uses negative space to help emphasizes something. When Claude first comes up to Petite Rouge he tips the boat and the end that she is in is the only part that is illustrated on that side of the double page spread. The other side is a full picture. Harris used negative space in this illustration to draw attention to the fact that Petite Rouge is sitting in the boat which is now raised high above the water.

     This book would be great when talking about different dialects. The whole book is written in a Cajun dialect. It also contains lots of french and cajun phrases that students may have never heard. Students could also compare and contrast this book with the original Little Red Ridding Hood story. This book could also be used to just talk about Cajun culture and explain where the Cajun culture came from.