MWSA Review

Seven-year-old twins Ella and Alex meet Layla, a six-year-old, on their first visit to Discovery Casa retirement home, where their mother, a nurse, works. Boredom encourages the three, out of curiosity, to wander into the room of a new resident named Art to get a closer look at a rather unusual and incorrect painting they spotted through a partially open door: three dinosaurs on a beach, with a woman in the foreground. Award-winning author Brunella Costagliola continues the fast-paced story with Art entering his room unexpectedly, catching the three interlopers. Art was wearing a paint-covered smock with a magic, talking paintbrush named Emet, emerging from a pocket. The extravagant and knowledgeable magic paintbrush, Emet, soon created a colorful whirlwind, which pulled the three friends into the painting, depositing them on the beach next to the woman. Mary Anning, the woman in the picture, they learn, is the famous 19th-century British fossil hunter whose findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth. Mary Anning demonstrated to the threesome how to search for fossils, thus creating a stimulating wonderment in the children. Emet, the paintbrush, returns the trio to Art’s room with another rainbow whirlwind, leaving each child filled with exciting new knowledge and awe. Full-page drawings by illustrator Valerio Mazzoli are left uncolored as invited by the author to “add your stroke of magic” and send them to the author (with instructions at the end of the book).

Review by Tom Beard (April 2023)

 

Author's Synopsis

Ella and Alex are seven-year-old Italian American twins who often go to Discovery Casa, a retirement home where their mother works as a nurse. One day, while there, they meet Layla, a six-year-old Afro-Panamanian girl who goes to Discovery Casa to visit her Abuelita, who tells the three friends that there is a new resident named Art–but nobody knows anything about him because he doesn't speak to anyone. Curious, Ella, Alex, and Layla go on a mission to find out who he is and they soon discover that he is an artist who painted a rather unusual and, at first glance, incorrect painting: three dinosaurs on a beach, with a woman in the background. What is a woman doing among dinosaurs? They wonder.

Before they know it, Art steps into his casa, wearing a white coat and a paintbrush in his pocket. Through a series of colorful and magical events, the paintbrush begins shimmering and shining, creating a glittery vortex that pulls the three friends into the painting and lands them on that very beach. This is when the real adventure begins: Ella, Alex, and Layla have traveled back in time thanks to Emet (which means Truth in Hebrew), the flamboyant, sarcastic, and knowledgeable paintbrush who, with a stroke of magic, will take them on many adventures throughout the series, where the children will meet pivotal figures that history has forgotten.

In the first book, the pivotal figure is Mary Anning, the female paleontologist whose findings on England’s Jurassic Coast contributed to the theory of evolution put forth by Charles Darwin and uncovered secrets about dinosaurs. However, many of her discoveries were unfairly credited to male paleontologists because of her gender, and as a result, history has overlooked her pioneering role.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Children & Young Adult—Chapter Book

Number of Pages: 81

Word Count: 8,000