Strega Nona lives in a town in Calabria and helps the townspeople with their problems. She hires a man named Big Anthony to be her assistant. Big Anthony witnesses Strega Nona using a magic pasta pot that produces an endless supply of pasta. When Strega Nona leaves town, Big Anthony tries to use the pot to feed the townspeople but fails to stop the pasta production. The town becomes overrun with pasta until Strega Nona returns and stops the flow. As punishment, Big Anthony must eat all the excess pasta.

1. Andrew Bowman
Children’s Literature
October 21st, 2011

2.  Strega Nona lives in a town in
Calabria and is the visited by all
the townsfolk when they have
troubles. One day Strega Nona
realizes she works too hard and
needs to find a helper.
She hires a local man named Big
Anthony. He is a bit of a klutz and very
dull but he works hard and does whatever
Strega Nona tells him. One Night Big
Anthony witnesses Strega Nona using a
magic pasta pot that will make pasta
appear from thin air and never run out.

3.  Big Anthony decides to
become a town hero and use
the magic pasta pot to feed all
the people in the town when
Strega Nona leaves on a trip.
Anthony succeeds in feeding
all the townspeople but doesn’t
properly recite the magic spell
to stop the constant flow of
pasta.
The town begins to get overtaken by the
steady production of pasta and before all
hope is lost Strega Nona returns and
stops the pasta from completely taking
over the town. As punishment Big
Anthony must eat all the pasta to clear
the town allow Strega Nona to sleep in
her own bed that night.

4. Illustration Style
 The artwork in Strega Nona has a very unique art
style that can be found in nearly all of Tomie
dePaola’s books.
 Many of the same techniques can be seen in other
books such as the re-use of character models.
 The artwork in this book looks very dated in the
sense that the colors are faded and the use of a very
similar and limited color selection.

5.  Tomie dePaola gives each of his characters very
specific features that allows the child to clearly
determine who they should be focusing on, or to help
them find the character on the page.
 By doing this the child can almost understand what
is happening in the book without even reading the
story for himself/herself.
 dePaola also does a great job of using facial
expressions give all of the characters in the pictures
emotion.

6.  Strega Nona:
 Shorter than all other characters
 Long rounded Nose
 Always wears her brown hooded cape
 Large chin
• Big Anthony
•Much taller than all the other characters
•Shaggy blonde hair
•Long nose
•Orange tunic with pink sleeves

7. Use of Colors
 A very simple color wheel consisting of similar pinks,
oranges and purples lets the images blend nicely with
nothing sticking out too much to unwittingly draw the
readers attention from the story and main characters.
 A lot of white space is used on each page and sets the
background for the picture. This eliminates all sense of
clutter in the pictures and lets the reader focus on the
main images rather than smaller imagery off in the
distance.

9. Different methods of illustration
 Most of the pages in this book use illustrations that
make up the whole page and will grab the readers
attention as they take the time to make sense of all the
things happening on the page
 Occasionally smaller rectangular illustrations are used
to show examples or a series of events that could not
be shown in a large picture. It is very comic strip style
and makes it easy to determine what’s happening in
the story and on the page

10. Moral & Final Thoughts
 The moral of this story is to listen to your elders and
follows the rules they have set for you. Big Anthony
goes against Strega Nona’s wishes and ends up putting
the whole town at risk.
 This book is amazing. I used to read it all the time as a
child and many of dePaola’s other childrens books.
The art style is very unique and appeals greatly to
children. The stories are simple and are great to read
before bed.