Strega Nona

"Strega Nona" (ISBN 0-671-66606-1) is an original children's book written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola about an elderly lady who helps her fellow villagers out with their troubles, most notably by curing headaches, helping single women find husbands, and ridding people of warts.

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The story begins with Strega Nona who is seeking help from someone in both outdoor and indoor chores. The first to respond to her advertisement is tall, clumsy Big Anthony.

Strega Nona assigns Big Anthony to various chores around her house, but she also warns him not to touch her magic pasta pot, an enchanted pot that produces pasta at the command of a spell. In the middle of one of his chores, Anthony spies on Strega Nona conjuring pasta from the pasta pot. He also watches as she commands the pot to stop producing pasta. Anthony does "not" observe Strega Nona blow three kisses after commanding the pasta pot to stop producing pasta.

When Strega Nona spends a day to visit her friend Strega Amelia, Big Anthony uses the opportunity to spread the news of the pasta pot and serve everyone pasta. However, because he did not know how to properly stop the pasta pot from producing pasta, the pasta continued to flow, flooding the town with pasta.

Fortunately, Strega Nona returns from her visit and commands the pasta pot to stop producing pasta, blowing three kisses after issuing her command. Big Anthony ends up having to eat all of the pasta that flooded the town as punishment for disobeying Strega Nona.

Other tales

Strega Nona and Big Anthony also appear in several more adventures.

In other stories, Tomie dePaola writes about Strega Nona's life, telling the readers how she got the magic pasta pot and learned her magic. It all came from the help of her grandmother, Grandma Concetta.

Big Anthony also gains a biographical book, called "Big Anthony, His Story" which tells of his life since childhood and how his family noticed that Big Anthony simply does not pay attention.

In the Italian language, the word "strega" means witch and "nona" means grandma - hence Strega Nona, or "Grandma Witch." It is clear in the stories, mainly "Strega Nona, Her Story", that Nona is her actual name. In colloquial Italian, "nona" is an affectionate term for "grandma", and "strega nona" means simply "old woman" or "old bat". The Italians also have stories about a witch (known as 'La Befana') that brings presents to good children on the epiphany (January 6th).Tomie dePaola also wrote a book concerning the Befana and her story, called "The Legend of Old Befana".