Evaluation

I really loved the variations of the same story within this novel. Although I was familiar with the “gingerbread man,” It was neat to read “the pancake” from Norway and “the bun” from Russia. All three of them had lots of repeated lines that built upon each other until the whole story was read. It was fun to compare the stories and notice the similarities and differences in terms of character and plot. I think for younger children this would be a great exercise to introduce or us a ven diagram to compare and contrast them as a class together. For example, the story from the United States and the story from Sweden both had the fox gulp down whatever the “food” item was. In Norway however, the big pig was the one who gulped down the food instead of the fox. I also loved the chain reaction poems which could easily be written in the classroom. I love the parallel structure of these chain reaction poems and I think the repetition is an excellent tool for children who are younger and become excited when they see a word or a line that they recognize in the story. A teacher could also have the children make variations on the ginger bread man and alter their own story according to how they want it to end. Perhaps this could be a writing workshop story that the children can publish and then share with the rest of their classmates.