He returned to New England to teach but eventually began working full-time as an author and illustrator.

They evoked both the comfort of home and the thrill of adventure.ĭePaola is a native of Connecticut who studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and at the California College of the Arts. There was something soothing about the pictures in these books. But dePaola’s illustrated world extends well beyond Italian villages, and at 84 he has now written and/or illustrated more than 250 books. And these books were special for reasons beyond their delicacy they introduced me to the man who would become one of my all-time favorite authors and illustrators of children’s books: Tomie dePaola.ĭePaola is perhaps best known for his “Strega Nona” series, about an Italian “grandma witch” who helps the neighborhood with headaches and warts and who owns a somewhat infamous pasta pot, which-when used by a bumbling layman-manages to nearly cover the town in spaghetti. They evoked both the comfort of home and the thrill of adventure.

I longed to stand with Giovani beside the fountain in his town or the Wise Men as they watched the star-which grew in size and magnificence as you turned a paper wheel-glowing in the sky over the stable. I loved poring over every detail of these books as I absorbed the stories.

However, due to the delicate nature of their moving paper parts, the books were kept on a high shelf and brought down to be read with some degree of supervision, lest Giorgio or the Christ Child be permanently separated from their scenes. Both were intricate pop-up books that I received as a young child. We called them the “special books”: Giorgio’s Village, about everyday life in an Italian village, and The First Christmas, about, of course, the birth of Christ.

The Holy Twins by Kathleen Norris