• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

Three kisses for Tomie dePaola

March 31, 2020
By Rita Buettner
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window, Saints

If you’ve read Tomie dePaola’s book Strega Nona, you know about the elderly lady’s pasta pot. She sings a magical song, and her pot fills with delicious pasta.

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.

When the bumbling Big Anthony disobeys Strega Nona and tries his hand at the pasta pot while she’s away, he cooks enough pasta for the whole town. But when he tries to stop the pot, he can’t. He doesn’t realize that he has to blow three kisses to end the magic. He ends up with a pasta pot that gets out of control, making way too much pasta until Strega Nona returns home and saves the day.

Today I’m thinking of Strega Nona and the author who created her. DePaola passed away yesterday, leaving a legacy of books full of memorable illustrations and relatable characters who have delighted numerous children and adults for decades.

Through his art and storytelling, he has introduced us to very human characters who live simple lives with purpose and joy. They’re flawed and real, and we laugh at them as children—and then later with them as adults, as we realize how much we are like them ourselves.

We are Jamie O’Rourke, the laziest man in Ireland who wastes an encounter with a leprechaun and ends up with the biggest potato in the world. We are Tony, who feels he has little to offer beyond an unusual recipe for a bread he bakes in a flowerpot. We are Big Anthony, who thinks he can control a magic pasta pot and makes a mess of the whole situation.

There’s so much humanity and so much hope in DePaola’s works.

DePaola considered a vocation to religious life when he was younger, and his saint stories are so wonderful in the very human way they bring saints to life. Christopher: The Holy Giant is one of my favorites for the way dePaola invites us to walk across those waters with St. Christopher, feeling the enormous weight of carrying the Child Jesus on our shoulders.

Whatever the topic, DePaola brought such a beautiful touch to his tellings and retellings of stories we knew or thought we knew—stories that I’ve had the chance to discover with our children over the years.

Enough, enough, pasta pot,

I have my pasta, nice and hot,

So simmer down my pot of clay,

Until I’m hungry another day.

We could never get enough of Tomie dePaola’s illustrations and stories. But what he has left behind for us will have to be enough to read over and over again. This much-loved author is writing a new chapter and surely experiencing incomparable colors and characters now that St. Peter has welcomed him home.

Thank you, Tomie, for making us smile and warming our hearts with your creative eye and ear for so many years. Well done, good and faithful servant. Today, we are sending three sad but very grateful kisses to you in heaven.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Rita Buettner

Rita Buettner is a wife, working mother and author of the Catholic Review's Open Window blog. She and her husband adopted their two sons from China, and Rita often writes about topics concerning adoption, family and faith.

Rita also writes The Domestic Church, a featured column in the Catholic Review. Her writing has been honored by the Catholic Press Association, the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and the Associated Church Press.

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

‘You kill your crickets, eh?’ Discovering Dickens’ other Christmas tale

Pray the news, pray the media, and imbue the culture with Christ

Can one Mass satisfy my Sunday and Christmas obligation in 2023?

Keep the candle lit: pouring out the greatest gift

Detachment as a component of God’s peace

| Recent Local News |

Choosing your gaze: Hispanic Youth Ministry Retreat provides a weekend of spiritual growth, unity

Catholic High crowned again as Baltimore’s best girls private school by magazine

Baltimore City approves inclusive housing bill

Quirk of calendar requires two obligations for Masses at Christmas time

Radio Interview: Hound of the Lord

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Choosing your gaze: Hispanic Youth Ministry Retreat provides a weekend of spiritual growth, unity
  • ‘You kill your crickets, eh?’ Discovering Dickens’ other Christmas tale
  • Catholic High crowned again as Baltimore’s best girls private school by magazine
  • Proposed referendum for Irish Constitution calls for widening the definition of family
  • Pope, Council of Cardinals discussed the role of women in the church
  • Archbishop exhorts Advent vigilance as national shrine’s Holy Door sealed
  • Holy Spirit inspires creativity, simplicity in evangelization, pope says
  • Tuberville ends hold on hundreds of military promotions over Pentagon abortion policy
  • Can one Mass satisfy my Sunday and Christmas obligation in 2023?

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED