Image Credit: Tomie dePaola on Amazon
Illustration from The Magical World of Strega Nona

Image Credit: Tomie dePaola on Amazon
Illustration from The Magical World of Strega Nona

Image Credit: Tomie dePaola on Amazon
Illustration from The Magical World of Strega Nona

Letter  from Tomie dePaola

“Everyone always wants to know just how Strega Nona came about. Many people thik that she is a character in Italian folklore, and I even have people telling me that they are ‘so happy to see the Strega Nona stories in a book.’

“In fact, years ago, right after Strega Nona was first published in 1975, I was about to speak at a conference, and this rather impressive woman with her jet-black hair ran up to me. Wearing a black ress with a red flower pinned to her shoulder, she looked like an Italian star–a diva.

“‘Tomie dePaola!’ she bellowed (pronouncing my name correctly!) She grabbed me, pressed me to her bosom (she was taller than me), and said, ‘Thank God, someone is doing the Strega Nona stories again!’

“That took me be surprise. Had my Italian collective unconscious channeled Strega Nona, or was she part of my imagination? I thought I had invented her. So, I delved through as much Italian folklore as I could, and lo and behold–NO STREGA NONA–ANYWHERE.

“So, here’s the real scoop on how Strega Nona came about …
“In the early 1970s, I was teaching in the theater department at what is now Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire. My books were beginning to get notice, so my editor at Prentice-Hall (now Simon & Schuster), Ellen Roberts, suggested that I look into retelling and illustrating a folktale.

“Well, some months before at a required weekly college faculty meeting (I always sat in the back row with a legal pad and dooled–the administration thought that I was taking notes), I was, as usual, doodling. I was obsesse with the Italian commedia dell’arte character Punchinello. So many of my doodles were of him–big nose, big chin.

Image Credit: Tomie dePaola on Amazon
Illustration from The Magical World of Strega Nona, pg

“On my pad, I drew the profile, but suddenly I found I had drawn a headscarf. I put in the eye and the smiling mouth and continued to draw a little chubby body, complete with long skirt and apron. And I scribbled the words ‘Strega Nona’ next to the drawing.

“I was tickled pink. She was so cute, so Italian, and I thought I might be able to use her in a book somedayl I pinned the doodle up on my studio wall.

“Back to Ellen Roberts and her suggestion that I retell a folktale. ‘What was one of your favorite folktales when you were a child?’ she asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image Credit: Tomie dePaola on Amazon
Illustration from Strega Nona, pg.

“‘The porridge pot story,’ I answered immediately.

“‘Why don’t you reread in in a version that’s in the public domain and see if you’re interested enough in it to retell it,’ Ellen said.

“So, it reread the story. But I didn’t really like it. Suddenly, LIGHTBULB TIME!

“Maybe I could change porridge to pasta and use my little Strega Nona (who was already ‘telling’ me who she was}.

“I called Ellen to ask if it was legal to retell a story.

“‘Of course,’ she said, ‘as long as the story is in the public domain.’  ( A story in the public domain is a story for which the copyright has expired or lapsed. Public domain stories are usually very old.)

“So, I started working on the text for Strega Nona.

“The original manuscript, written by hand on a yellow legal pad, is at the Kerlan Children’s iterature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (Children’s book writers and illustrators give their book manuscript materials and illustration materials t0 the Kerlan to safely preserve forever. Similar repositories are at the University of Connecticut and at the University of Southern Mississippi.) If you ever get a chance to see the original manuscript, you’ll notice that Big Anthony was originally a GIRL named Concetta! But I felt that the worl did not need one more not-too-bright servant girl in folklore, so I crossed out ‘Concetta’ and wrote instead, ‘Big Anthony, who did not pay attention.’

“One more controversy.

“‘Why,’ many Italians and Italian Americans ask me, ‘is Nona spelled with one ‘n’ and not two?’ The Italian word for ‘grandmother’ is nonna.)

“And, on top of it all, Nona is her NAME. I settled that in Strega Nona: Her Story, I hope.

“But the truth of the matter is that Strega Nona is bigger than life, and she certainly changed mine

“After all, I tell audiences, ‘Strega Nona built my swimming pool.’ And finally, maybye you’ll notice that Strega Nona looks a tiny bit different in the first book than she does later on. Well, as I got to know her better, I began to draw her better!” Tomie dePaola, a letter in the book: The Magical Worlds of Strega Nona.

Image Credit: Tomie dePaola on Amazon
Illustration from The Magical World of Strega Nona, pg

“This is the book that started it all. From a doodle of Strega Nona to the idea of retelling my favorite childhood folktale, ‘The Porridge Pot,’ with the porridge changing to pasta, Strega Nona was born, I had no idea that this little old woman who had magical powers and a profile that resembled Punchinello would ever live in more than one book–let alone Big Anthony.'” dePaola