Happy Pasta Day!
Strega Nona written and illustrated by Tomi dePaola (1975)
The classic pasta pot story starts with an old woman in Italy with a magic touch and a magic pasta pot, Strega Nona. Whenever she wanted pasta she sang, “Bubble, bubble, pasta pot, Boil me some pasta, nice and hot, I’m hungry and it’s time to sup, Boil enough pasta to fill me up.” And when she had enough she sang another little song to stop the cooking and blew three kisses to the magic pasta pot. Now, Strega Nona had a simple assistant named Big Anthony who happened to see her work her magic, and one day while she was away, he tried to make pasta too. The only problem was that Big Anthony couldn’t remember how to stop the magic and soon the whole town was filled with pasta flowing out the window of the house and through the village streets. When Strega Nona returned, she immediately stopped the magic and instructed Big Anthony to eat every bit of the pasta he had made, which he did.
Oodles of Noodles written by Diana Hendry and illustrated by Sarah Massini (2008)
Mrs. Mungo got a new pasta-making machine for her birthday. And although her children Ava and Ben do not like pasta, she began making her first batch of homemade noodles. Mrs. Mungo was so excited to have oodles of noodles. The only problem was that once the machine got started, it wouldn’t stop. Soon Mrs. Mungo was tied up like a noodle mummy and the noodles filled her house and ran out the door. Everyone filled their bowls with noodles while Mrs. Mungo tried desperately to stop the machine. When Ava and Ben got home from school, they repeated Mrs. Mungo’s phrase backwards ‘noodles of oodles’ and the machine stopped making noodles. They unwound their mother and prepared for a lunch of noodles, even though they disliked them. But their mother decided it might be better to have burgers and fries.
On Top of Spaghetti written and illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson with song lyrics by Tom Glazer (2006)
Yodeler Jones, the singing hound, tells the story of what happened when he tried a new meatball recipe for his famous spaghetti dish. ‘On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.’ Well that giant meatball rolled out the door and smack dab into Miss Jenkins who was shopping at the Piggly Wiggly. From there it bonked the traffic cop on the head and zinged all the way to the ball park where Bad Bubba Junior hit it out of the park and under a bush. Then a miracle occurred… that meatball mush caused the bush to grow into a meatball tree covered in tomato sauce. Now Yodeler Jones has a never-ending supply of meatballs for his famous spaghetti.
For more books about spaghetti check out Spaghetti Day HERE.
Juliana Lee 
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