Booklife Review

Costagliola’s fun debut middle-grade adventure brings together twin brother and sister, and their new friend, Layla, on a magical adventure in history. Alex and Ella accompany their mother to her job at a retirement home, heading straight for the fake tattoos in the gumball machines. There they meet Layla, who is visiting her Abuelita. Shortly after meeting Abuelita, they walk by a residence with its door open and a painting inside that draws their attention. While marveling at the painting, the owner, Art, walks in. He hands a paintbrush to Ella, and to their surprise, it not only comes alive, but takes them traveling back in time to meet the woman in the painting: Mary Anning, the pioneering English paleontologist.

Although middle-grade readers will be drawn in by the magic and adventure the paintbrush brings, parents and educators will be impressed by how deftly Costagliola mixes in informative elements. From the beginning, readers are taught Panamanian culture, some Spanish, and environmental issues to keep in mind, such as cars creating smog and the environmental costs of plastics. The main subject, Mary Anning, is introduced with such flair that middle-grade readers might not recognize it as a lesson. The heroes meet her personally and watch with their own eyes the work she does recovering fossils—and learn how deeply knowledgeable she is, yet also how frustrated she is to not be accepted as an equal by male scientists.

Throughout, Costagliola demonstrates, in an offhand way, the fun of learning, especially as Layla can’t wait to set all of this down in her “Discovery Diary” back home. Drawn perfectly for the middle-grade eye, iIllustrations by Valerio Mazzoli bring the story and characters to life with expressive faces—especially on the paintbrush—and lively details like toothy dinosaur mouths and Mary Anning’s Victorian bonnet. (The black-and-white illustrations appear again at the end of the book for readers to color.)

Takeaway: This fun time-travel adventure introduces today’s kids to the Victorian paleontologist, Mary Anning.

Great for fans of: Laurence Anholt’s Stone Girl, Bone Girl, Tracey Fern’s Barnum's Bones.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A