Last March saw the release of the latest work by one of Australia’s best-known children’s writers.

In fact, Italian-Australian Felice Arena personally read Pasta! aloud at numerous bookstores around the country.

Arena has written several books for children of all ages such as The Boy and the Spy, Fearless Frederic and A Great Escape, as well as the popular and much-loved Specky Magee.

Felice “by name and by nature” is how the author describes himself.

He has a Sicilian mother, from Enna, and a Calabrian father, from Catanzaro. His parents emigrated with his grandparents in the 1960s.

Around 30 years later, Arena returned to the ‘old world’ for most of the 1990s where he lived in England.

There he worked as a teacher before returning to Australia to become an actor, landing the role of Marco Alessi in the famous television series Neighbours.

“I played an Italian-Australian character,” he recounted.

“Then I moved on to do musicals in the theatre where I began writing in my dressing room, between breaks.”

The author recalls how he liked to write stories about his childhood.

From there he was noticed by a literary agent who urged him to submit his work to several publishers.

After continuing in the field of acting for a while longer, Arena later decided to devote himself completely to writing, a pursuit that took him at first to the United States and then back to Australia.

And it was during this period that he wrote the famous Specky Magee, which chronicled the adventures of a young footy player.

“For more than two decades the series was a national success,” said Arena.

“In 2008, in a ranking by the publishing house Angus & Robertson, the books belonging to this series were ranked among the most popular for boys after Harry Potter and the works of Roald Dahl.

“When I’m not writing, I’m usually always travelling around the country doing shows and speaking in schools,” Arena revealed.

“I also act with children, and we often perform the books I’ve written with them.

“It’s great because, in addition to acting, we jump around, read together, and most of all we have a lot of fun!”

Pasta! was created with this goal in mind: to try to establish a deeper connection with children.

The book is aimed at children ages five to seven.

“When kids read the book, it’s like hearing them sing because everything rhymes and the Italian language is so melodic,” said Arena.

“So even if the children do not know the language, they are still fascinated by the pronunciation and sound of those words that are unknown to them.”

Flipping through Pasta!, it is impossible not to muster up memories of one’s childhood.

Each page is a set of rhymes built on the names of one of the most famous foods of the Bel Paese.

The story is accompanied by illustrations from Italian artist Beatrice Cerocchi, an architect by trade with a passion for drawing, whose works have also been published in Vogue Bambini and the New York Times.

“Pasta! was born out of my interest in writing in rhyme and using books as a medium for acting and reading aloud,” Arena explained.

“I took inspiration for the types of pasta from my personal experiences. For example, in 2019 I was in Brescia and tasted Casoncelli for the first time.

“That’s how the rhyme ‘UUh Casoncelli, feed my belly!’ was born, and then from there I started thinking of all the possible rhymes and had a lot of fun researching.

“I grew up in Cobram (Victoria) with an Italian family and I remember my friends couldn’t understand the food I ate, like salami, chestnuts, passata and pasta itself.

“Then after some time, all my friends started to want to come over for dinner.

“This book is meant to be a celebration of Italian culture, especially gastronomic and linguistic culture, to make it known to those who haven’t had the chance yet.”