Roule Galette: a French version of the Gingerbread Man story

19 Mar 2013

Roule galette is a traditional French story similar to that of the Gingerbread Man. It is very popular around Epiphany as France celebrates that day by eating a galette.
Here is my review of the Père Castor version of the story, a classic.


The book

The book I got is a basic simple story aimed at the very little ones (2-6 years old). It is part of a series from the Père Castor collection. If you don't know about it, the Père Castor is a collection from the Flammarion publisher which publishes affordable and quality books since 1931 for children aged 1 till 10. You can read more about it here (in French). 

The story

The story is pretty much the same as that of the Gingerbread Man. An old woman bakes a 'galette' for the old man but it is too hot. She puts it on the window ledge for it to cool down. But because the 'galette' is bored, it runs away. While running away, it meets a rabbit, a wolf and a bear. All tell the 'galette' that they will eat it. But the 'galette' is more clever and asks them to listen to her little song first: 

Je suis la galette, la galette
Je suis faites avec le blé ramassé dans le grenier
On m'a mis à refroidir mais j'ai mieux aimé courir
Attrape-moi si tu peux!
   
It then runs so fasts, that of course none of the animals can eat it. The final animal is a fox. It acts differently and pretends not to hear the 'galette' asking it to jump on its nose, so it can hear better. And guess, what? The fox eats the 'galette'! 


 My verdict

The story is good and book is fun. I am not completely sold on the illustrations that I found a little dark. Miss 3 likes the story but it is not her favourite (even though we read it four times in a row when we returned from the book store). 

Going further

You can find a read-aloud version of this story here



Here are a few activities to go further on this story with young children.

The French 'galette' 

A few words about the French 'galette'. A galette can be several things in French. It can be:
- a dry biscuit,
- a savoury crepe/pancake made out of buckwheat flour (from Brittany),
- a puff pastry cake (notably eaten for Epiphany in January).

The 'galette' from the story is most likely the latter kind given the way it is drawn. 


You can find a child-friendly recipe of the 'galette' here. Or check out the story of the galette, its fun kid-friendly tradition and my own recipe here.


Roule Galette: traitional French story like the Gingerbread Man



6 comments

  1. It's curious that there is a very similar story in Russian called Kolobok (Колобок) that is part of the Russian folklore. Nothing alike in Spanish, as far as I know.

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    1. How about this one? http://alldonemonkey.com/2013/03/19/runaway-radish-book-review-and-experiment/

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  2. Also check out El Cochinito Fugitivo:). Check out the whole list here: http://kidworldcitizen.org/2013/03/27/gingerbread-stories-from-around-the-world/

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  3. Thank you for the links. Both books look great. What I meant was this story it's not part of our folklore, as it is for Russians. Russians have not only the story, but poems, songs, cartoons about Kolobok. Actually I love the idea of finding similar stories from different cultures!

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  4. Great write up. I really enjoyed while i am reading this post. I love French culture, French food, French life style. Last summer i have visited France as well as i have enjoyed this vacation.

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  5. My parents in France read that book to me when I was young and I am reading it to my daughter. I thought I would check the story...it says drawn by xxx and told by xxx. This means she is not the author of the story...the drawn character and the whole story always had a Slavic feel to me...

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