Strega Nona

0.5 point is removed because it's “Nonna”, not “Nona”. But 0.5 added because it's so wonderful.

Strega Nona (“Granma” Witch) lives in a wonderful little Medieval Calabrian (?) town, mixing her various potions to help the townsfolk with their warts, love lives, and family planning. One day, she advertises her need for an assistant and Big Anthony shows up. He's a decent worker - except, one day, he spies her making her magical pasta pot boil magical pasta and gets greedy.

This is a fun, gorgeous little book that has remained a strong favorite in our house for many many months. You can easily adapt it to different ages/attention spans by, well, telling an abbreviated version of the story. But who doesn't love a disaster movie featuring a tidal wave of magic pasta threatening to subsume an entire little town?! WHO? My personal favorite moment is the nuns praying in front of the pasta wave.