Why a Booktrail?
Have you met Strega Nona?
Strega Nona
Why a Booktrail?
Have you met Strega Nona?
What you need to know before your trail
Tomie dePaola serves as “biographer” to his delightful Italian sorceress, Strega Nona, in this beautifully drawn prequel. The tale begins with little Nona’s birth on a dark and stormy night, and ends where the original Strega Nona picks up-with Strega Nona taking on the bumbling, knock-kneed Big Anthony as an apprentice. This winsome story is illustrated throughout with Tomie dePaola’s warm and sunny watercolors! “dePaola does a splendid job of working this sparkling tale into the Strega Nona canon.” –
Travel Guide
Calabria
Set somewhere in Calabria, the toe of the boot of Italy.
Strega Nona is a sweet grandmotherly witch who entrusts her magical pasta pot to her sweet, but bumbling helper, Big Anthony. While she is out, he turns on the magic pasta pot and then can’t turn it off. Pasta spills out of the pot, then out of the house and into the town.
She is a sort of female witch doctor noted throughout her home village for her numerous successful remedies for headaches and all kinds of ailments.
She’s getting old however and so one day employs a young man named Big Anthony to help out. 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. Since Big Anthony cannot stop the pot from cooking, the town is flooded with macaroni noodles.
Then the adventures, like the macaroni noodles just keep coming!
In the Italian language, the word “strega” means “witch” and the word “nonna” means “grandmother.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Strega Nona
Destination :Italy, Calabria Author/Guide: Marguerite Ciccolini
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