Petite Rouge

Sheila Hébert Collins retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood—Cajun style—in PetiteRouge, featuring illustrations by Chris Diket.

Little Red Riding Hood lives in the hearts of many, instilling in children everywhere a fear of cloaks and big, bad wolves, of course! Way down south in Louisiana, there lives a girl named Clotilde, but everyone calls her Petite Rouge because of the beautiful cloak she wears.

One day, Petite Rouge hurries through the swamp on her pirogue to bring her sick grandmère some soothing shrimp étouffée. Along the way she meets a friendly gator, the one her mother always warned her about: Taille-Taille. Polite and well-spoken, Taille-Taille’s behavior belies the fact that all he wants to do is gobble up Rouge, and her hood, too!

Petite Rouge and her grandmère are both fooled, but they come out whole and unharmed when the local shrimpers cut open dat der gator belly. What do they do with Taille-Taille? They cook him into a sauce piquante and faisdo doing the night away! Sound fun? You can make your own Alligator Sauce Piquante. Just follow the recipe at the end of the tale and bon appetite!

Full of Cajun words and phrases, accompanying definitions, and a pronunciation guide, Petite Rouge: A Cajun Twist to an Old Tale will teach children a petite peu about Cajun culture.