Strega Nona

Strega Nona

Cover with correct "an original tale..." subtitle
Author	Tomie dePaola
Original title	Strega Nonna
Illustrator	Tomie dePaola
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Genre	Children's
Published	1975
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
ISBN

Strega Nona is an original children's book written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola. It concerns Strega Nona ("Grandma Witch") and her helper. The helper causes the title character's magic pasta pot to create so much pasta that it nearly flooded and buried a town. The book, which is likely dePaola's best-known work, was published in 1975 and won a Caldecott Honor in 1976. It was one of the "Top 100 Picture Books" of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.

Set in Calabria, in southern Italy, the book focuses on the exploits of Strega Nona. She is a sort of female witch doctor noted throughout her home village for her numerous successful remedies. She helps her fellow villagers with their troubles, most notably by curing headaches, helping single women find husbands, and ridding people of warts.

Because she "was getting old," she employs the assistance of a young man named Big Anthony who "didn't pay attention." He secretly observes her singing a spell to a magic pasta pot to produce large amounts of cooked pasta; unfortunately, he fails to notice that she blows kisses to the pot three times to stop the pasta production.

One day, to visit a friend far away, Strega Nona leaves her residence under Big Anthony's care. He decides to use the magic pasta pot to his advantage by summoning humongous amounts of pasta for the villagers. However, because Big Anthony does not know how to stop the pot from making more pasta, it overflows and floods the entire town under a great sea of pasta noodles. Upon returning home, Strega Nona blows kisses three times, and the town is saved.

Saying "the punishment must fit the crime," Strega Nona hands a fork to Big Anthony and commands him to eat all the pasta he has conjured. By nightfall, he is stuffed.

Although the cover and title page of early printings of the book stated that Strega Nona is "an old tale retold and illustrated by Tomie de Paola," in truth dePaola invented the character and the story himself. He wrote the words "Strega Nona" next to a doodle of a woman's head he drew in the early 1970s and later made her the main character in his story based on the Sweet Porridge fairy tale. Later printings of the book bear the accurate subtitle "an original tale written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola."