Big Anthony: His Story

We love all the Strega Nonna books. Great books for kids!!! Great wholesome stories. Beautiful illustrations!!!’

My kids (5 & 7) love Tomie DePaola’s Strega Nona story. This installment offers some backstory for Big Anthony. The main character, Big Anthony, grows up and experiences a series of blundering mistakes due to his failure to pay attention. My kids love the humor here (lunch gets lost in a sea of haystacks, Big Anthony leaves gates open and sheep wander off). Big Anthony sets off for a job and moves across Italy, introducing children to major landmarks. Strega Nona only appears at the end. We love DePaola’s artwork and the slapstick humor really engages children. It’s pointed out several times that Big Anthony suffers for his failure to pay attention but the humor is the real take away here.

We love the Strega Nona stories and Big Anthony finally has a book if his own!

I could never read the story of her magic pasta pot enough. My daughter is expecting her first child and I bought this book for her. Tears came to her eyes as she remembered me reading Strega Nona to her when she was young. She can now read Strega Nona stories to her upcoming baby.

Love this story. Hes cute. You kind of feel sorry for him. I have a co worker named Anthony and he looks like him tall and thin but not clumsy. Nice drawings. I love Strega Nona too

Another Tomie dePaola favorite!! My boys laugh so hard while we read the mishaps of Big Anthony in the Strega Nona books. So it was really fun having a whole story dedicated to him, and how he hasnt paid attention for a very long time. Haha!!

son loved it.

When my daughter read this book we had to get all other books about Strega Nona, Big Anthony and Bambolona from the library. Now we have B-day party with these characters. Great story!

Lovely story but clearly not a full story