https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGVXwMX0e5w&t=82s
Strega Nona is a story about a woman who is known as the town witch, who has remedies, potions, cures and all sorts of wonderful sorceries under her sleeve. This is originally a picture book, but can be found at the link above as an online story read aloud by Mary Steenburgen. Strega Nona is becoming too old and is realizing that she needs help around her house, where she then puts out an advertisement for help. A boy named Big Anthony answers her ad and begins to help her with her daily chores. One day, Strega Nona says that she must leave to visit her friend Strega Amelia and has one tiny request.
Please Big Anthony, do not use my magic pasta pot.
Big Anthony thinks that he knows it all since he saw Strega Nona use her magic pasta pot once before, but little does he know, he missed something when he turned his back.
Read the story to find out if Strega Nona gets back in time from her trip to the mountains to save her town or not.
This story would ideally be for kindergarten through second grade. It can teach writing skills, but also morals for younger children to have instilled.
This is a great story to teach younger children about dishonesty, and how listening to directions can only benefit you. Big Anthony almost destroys his whole town because he does not listen to his mentor, and that has a great message to be learned. This is a cultural book, really deep and rich into Italian culture, which is refreshing although it is an older book.
What's inside?
Foreshadowing: When Strega Nona tells Big Anthony to not use her pasta pot, Big Anthony says to himself that he has seen her say the spell to make pasta boil, so he knows that he can do it himself.
We can assume that since she is leaving that something bad is going to happen since Big Anthony did not listen to her.
Alliteration:
Bubble, bubble, pasta pot,
Boil me some pasta, nice and hot
The word choice gives the little song that Strega Nona sings more of a pop off of what the normal dialogue is providing for the story.
Dialogue:
Although this is an early grade picture book, it still uses plenty of dialogue, including tiny little Italian phrases.
"Oh grazie - thank you, thank you, Strega Nona," the people cried.
The illustrations follow the story very nicely and portray a solid image to what the story is trying to portray. You can almost feel like you are in that tiny Italian town with the choice of coloring and how each of the characters are represented. It is a very authentic illustration and believable rendition of this fictional story.
How can we teach this?
This would be a great example story to read in pieces and have your students write in their journals about what they think is going to happen next. There are plenty of stopping points where the story can take a turn in any direction, and you are teaching them to use context clues and foreshadowing to make and educated guess onto what might happen next.
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