Strega Nona

Title: Strega Nona
Author: Tomie de Paola
Genre: Traditional/Folk Literature

Strega Nona is the tale of a magical woman in a town called Calabria. Strega Nona had many talents, and the townspeople often went to her for favors. When a man called Big Anthony comes to take care of Strega Nona's house, he see's and hears her charm her enchanted pasta pot to magically make pasta. However, he does not see how Strega Nona "turns off" the pasta making charm to get the pot to stop making pasta by blowing three kisses. Anthony decides to impress the townspeople by making pasta with Strega Nona's magic pasta pot. When Strega Nona was gone, Anthony charmed the pasta pot and had people come from all around to be amazed by his "talent". When he was done, he thought he knew how to charm it to turn it off, but did not realize that he needed to blow three kisses to turn the pasta pot off, and the pasta starts cooking and spilling out out of control. The pasta soon enveloped the town and the townspeople panicked as to how to stop the uncontrollable pasta. Soon, Strega Nona returned to see what had happened to the town, and immediately figured out what had happened. She blew three kisses to the pot to make it stop, and it did. The townspeople were furious with Anthony, and wanted to string him up, but Strega Nona had a better idea. She told Big Anthony that since he wanted pasta so badly, he could eat up the pasta that filled the town to clean it up, and that's just what he did.
This book was a recipient of the Caldecott Award, and is an enjoyable tale that teaches readers a moral of "don't bite off more than you can chew".