Strega Nona Illustration Analysis

Andrew BowmanChildren’s LiteratureOctober 21st, 2011

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.

Summary

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.

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.

Illustration StyleThe 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.

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.

Strega Nona:Shorter than all other

charactersLong rounded NoseAlways wears her brown

hooded capeLarge chin

• Big Anthony • Much taller than all the other

characters• Shaggy blonde hair• Long nose• Orange tunic with pink sleeves

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.

Different methods of illustrationMost 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

Moral & Final ThoughtsThe 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.