Multicultural Gingerbread Books

Season's greetings everyone!  I hope you're all having a restful and happy vacation.  I think most of you know that I have a fascination with books that have similar themes.  I think that the gingerbread story is one of my top favorites.  It's so wonderful how every culture has their own version of the story.  I've been doing research this week on even more multicultural versions of the story, and they're displayed above in the carousel.  I did further research by asking the cutest little Russian boy that I saw about half an hour ago if he knew the story of the Kolobok.  He told me that it's a roll, like a gingerbread boy, and that his grandparents read him the story.  I was thrilled to find out that it really is a popular story with Russian children.  I haven't read The Runaway Tortilla yet for this year's students, but I think they'll adore the sassy little tortilla.  It takes place in Texas and the kids will really get into the Spanish words as they learn about another part of the country.

The kindergarten team at my school decided to compare and contrast The Gingerbread Boy with The Runaway Latkes.  We made sure that they had a strong foundation with The Gingerbread Boy by retelling the story and singing Jack Hartmann's song "The Gingerbread Man," which is basically the same story.  We then looked at the cover of The Runaway Latkes and predicted whether they would get eaten or not.  Next we read the story and discussed what was unique about each book and what they had in common.  We took dictation, noting each child's name along with what they said on a smaller Venn diagram.  Then we made a larger poster version over the holiday break.

Venn Diagram to Compare Gingerbread Stories

We let the children taste gingerbread cookies and latkes.  Susan, a retired teacher from our county, was kind enough to come in to school for the whole morning and make latkes for all five of our kindergarten classes.  The children were able to see how the latkes were cooked, smell the delicious aromas, find out why latkes are eaten during Hanukkah, and finally taste them.  Our students were so into the experience that they begged for seconds!

I would love to discover more versions of the story, or how you use them in your classroom.  Please feel free to leave me a comment below.  Happy New Year!