Where Dinosaurs Roam and Courage Awakens

Artemio's Gift by Charles Bruckerhoff

Charles Bruckerhoff‘s Artemio’s Gift is an ambitious children’s book that threads together dinosaurs, time travel, talking owls and moral philosophy into a single bedtime-length adventure. The book follows Viola, a capable and curious child who tumbles from an ordinary spring day of yard work into a dream journey that takes her back to the age of prehistoric creatures. The result is a story that is genuinely imaginative, breathless with excitement and earnest in its intentions.

A Gentle Beginning Turns Extraordinary

The story opens with a lovely domestic rhythm — Viola and her father rake leaves, eat satisfying meals and wind down the day with a dinosaur picture book read aloud at bedtime. Bruckerhoff is good at these small, warm details. Viola’s dinner of homemade chicken soup with dumplings and strawberry spinach salad feels real and grounding, establishing a safe, loving home before the dream world erupts. When Viola finally falls asleep, two Great Horned Owls — Harriet and Harold — fly through her open bedroom window seeking help. Harold has become entangled in garden netting and is bleeding. Viola, resourceful and calm, cuts him free with a pair of fabric scissors, then paints the owls’ claws with glittery nail polish from Grandma’s gift pack so she can tell them apart. It’s a charming, inventive detail that pays off throughout the rest of the book.

The owls, joined by the magnificent Solomon the Great One, carry Viola backward in time to a primeval world of volcanoes, towering forests, cockroaches the size of shoes and herds of dinosaurs. Bruckerhoff clearly did his research. The Brontosaurus, Triceratops, Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaur and T. rex each make appearances, described with genuine enthusiasm and specific detail — the Pteranodon’s twenty-foot wingspan, the T. rex’s two small but famous arms, the Ankylosaur’s defensive spiny plating. A conversation between Viola and Don the Pteranodon, who becomes her flying guide through this ancient landscape, even touches on the evolutionary connection between birds and theropod dinosaurs. For readers fascinated by prehistoric life, this is catnip.

Confrontation and Lasting Lessons

The book’s emotional and thematic climax arrives in a seaside cave where Viola, sheltering from a storm, encounters Artemio — an enormous saber-toothed cat, a Smilodon, who describes himself as the protector of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Viola, alone and face-to-face with a predator large enough to devour her, draws on her scissors as a potential weapon and her intelligence as her real one. She holds her nerve, presses the blade to Artemio’s jugular and refuses to flinch. It is a tense scene and a powerful one. Bruckerhoff does not talk down to his young readers. Viola is brave not because she is fearless but because she chooses to act rightly despite fear, and Artemio rewards her with a gold pendant engraved with words that will stay with her long after she wakes.

The values Artemio imparts — faith in God, love of family, honesty, courage, doing what is right — are delivered directly and without irony. Parents who share these values will find the book a welcome addition to their shelves. The messages are woven into the action.

Mario Lampic’s illustrations deserve mention. Created in a distinctive style that gives everything a dream-like quality, the images perfectly suit a story told through the gauze of sleep and imagination. They are atmospheric and inventive.

Bruckerhoff has written a book that genuinely believes children deserve brave stories and big ideas. That belief is a gift worth giving.