Strega Nona

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

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story begins with Strega Nona, due to her old age, 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.

Strega Nona and Anthony also appear in several more adventures.

In real life, the word "strega" in Italian means something like that of a witch and "nona" means grandmother- hence Strega Nona, grandmother witch. The Italian also have stories about a witch (known as 'La Befana') that brings presents to good children on the epiphany (January 6th), their version of a Santa Claus (who is also celebrated).