Tomie de Paola's first story featuring his beloved Strega Nona character, who began life in the 1970s as a doodle, and was the perfect creation for his Italianized retelling of Der süße Brei, Grimm's Fairy Tales, number 103. Der süße Brei, or The sweet porridge, is better known in English as The magic porridge pot. When Strega Nona leaves him alone with her magic pasta pot, Big Anthony is determined to show the townspeople how it works.

Big Anthony, well-meaning but inattentive, journeys around Italy causing one problem after another, before meeting Strega Nona.

The orphan Madeline catches a thief and makes a friend in Rome.

Dodsworth and his duck companion have a lovely time in Rome, even though the duck tries to improve the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and takes all the coins from the Trevi Fountain.

After being told that his father was an assassin for a criminal organization, fourteen-year-old Alex goes to Italy to find out more and becomes involved in a plan to kill thousands of English schoolchildren.

Two brothers, having run away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, are sought by a detective hired by their aunt, but they have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord."

Maximus and his twin sister Vanilla, slaves to the cruel and greedy Slobbus Pompius, risk their lives to save a horse and end up helping to save the city of Rome from the Goths.

Silvano and Chiara, teens sent to live in a friary and a nunnery in Renaissance Italy, are drawn to one another and dream of a future together, but when murders are committed in the friary, they must discover who is behind the crimes before they can realize their love.

Olivia y su famila van de vacaciones a Venecia y Olivia toma gelato, fue de paso en una gaondola y encuentra el souvenir perfecto. On a family vacation in Venice, Olivia indulges in gelato, rides in a gondola, and finds the perfect souvenir.

It's two years later . . .Friday steps out of prison, a shell of her former self. She's still wearing the same brown cardigan, but she swears she's never solving mysteries again! Yeah right - who is she kidding? She can't suppress her brilliant deductive mind and is soon drawn back into the intrigues of Highcrest Academy. Then Uncle Bernie rings, pleading with Friday to fly to Italy and help him protect the Uffizi Galleries from a team of art thieves...