Strega Nona was first copywritten in 1975, and yet I learned about it last year! How could this have happened? I like this book for many reasons. First, because it brings me back to my roots. Even though my family is not from Calabria, (although my Godmother Connie is) it still remind me of the feeling I get whenever I go back to Sicily. Sommatino, the town where my parents were born and raised, has 'characters' similiar to the ones in the book. What small Sicilian town would be complete without the town's witch that would make everyone wishes come true? Or even someone like Big Anthony, the one whose head always seemed to be in the clouds. Of course, these are from stories my grandmother had told me, which were also passed down to her from past generations.
There is one thing that bothers me in Strega Nona and that is the spelling of nona. There are actually two n's in nonna. I know that may be something insignificant to some, but every time I look at the cover, I can't help but to wonder why didn't Tomie dePaola bother to check the spelling of nonna.
There are a few lessons that I can teach my future students. We can celebrate multi-cultural in the classroom. I can do a lesson on why it's important to respect other people's property and not to experiment with something that is not their own. I would hope that this particular lesson would enable students to be respectful of other people's property.
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