A Stroke of Magic: The Last Hawaiian Princess

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 decorated with oil paint stains of different colors 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.