The Great Antonio：TOON Level 2 (A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection)

Elizabeth Bird's A Fuse #8 Production 2016 Fictionalized Non-Fiction for Kids
TD Summer Reading Club's Top Recommend Reads for 2017
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

The Great Antonio weighed as much as a horse, wrestled a bear, fought two trucks at once—AND HE WAS REAL!

What made the Great Antonio so great? Well, he made world records! He once lifted a telephone pole with twelve men hanging off of it! He could devour twenty-five roasted chickens in one sitting! In this whimsical book, beloved author and illustrator Elise Gravel tells the true story of Antonio Barichievich, the real-life and yet larger-than-life Montreal strongman whose heart was as big as his muscles.

* "A tribute as heartfelt as it is joyous” — Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Gravel gives us a funny, very kid-friendly story about a gentle giant, someone who twirled children around on his braids, turning himself into a human merry-go-round for their amusement." — School Library Journal Good Comics for Kids

"What’s to be made of lives that don’t go the way they were supposed to? Gravel shows that they’re worth paying attention to." — Publishers Weekly

"Kids will be taken by this larger-than-life figure, who is still beloved in Montreal, the city the Great Antonio called home."— Booklist

"Gravel’s cartoonish art is graphically sophisticated." — Montreal Gazette