The creatures are refusing to give reviews right now. However, they want their own vegetable garden. ( )

I don't enjoy the books that focus on Big Anthony more than Strega Nona, but it's still fun. ( )

Big Anthony gets into trouble again (but not as much this time - he's learned something!) when he makes his own garden it grows out of control. The extra, enormous vegetables turn into a harvest feast for the townspeople, whose gardens didn't grow as well. ( )

That 'grandmother witch' Strega Nona returns in this ninth picture-book devoted to her magical doings, this time planting a garden in her own time-honored tradition. As her plants grow in orderly rows, the secret garden planted by her bumbling assistant, Big Anthony, is a riot of confusion. When harvest time comes, Strega Nona has all that she needs, but finds that someone (Big Anthony) keeps leaving more produce at her door. Upon discovering that the people in town had a bad harvest, she knows what to do with the surplus...

Published in 2009, some twenty-four years after the initial Strega Nona story, Strega Nona's Harvest is a celebration of the bounty of the earth, and of the beauty and joy of the autumnal harvest season. The story here mirrors that in Strega Nona, in the sense that Big Anthony overhears and repeats his witchy employer's magical incantation, but in this tale Big Anthony's 'mistake' leads to a good result, in the form of a harvest feast for the entire town. I enjoyed author/artist Tomie dePaola's narrative here, and I especially enjoyed his bright, autumn-colored illustrations. Recommended to Strega Nona fans, and to anyone looking for fun picture-books featuring the fall season. ( )

This book still holds elements of humor and fun but the brightly color pictures highlights harvest. Young readers can get sucked into the story with the funny antics and hard work displayed by the main characters. ( )