Strega Nona
Tomie dePaola
Strega Nona’s charms escape me
I read Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona because of this Washington Post article, in which my sister is mentioned. It's a Caldicott Medal winner, so I grabbed it.
Honestly, it escapes me. The story is a fairly generic Sorcerer's Apprentice tale. (In fact, Wikipedia identifies it as "Aarne-Thompson type 565, the Magic Mill.") Of course, the Caldicott Medal is given for illustration. Although the illustrations were not bad, they appear to me to be nothing particularly special.