"Plain smart and moving. John Stanley's Little Lulu meets Miyazaki." --Guillermo Del Toro "Pearson's utter lack of pretension keeps Hilda feeling fresh, while his reading of folktales and Tove Jansson's Moomin series embeds Hilda in the long history of children's stories. [...] Hilda's dilemmas, while fantastic, also feel real [...] Pearson has found a lovely new way to dramatize childhood demons, while also making you long for your own cruise down the fjords." --The New Yorker "[Hilda's world] is... a glorious, exciting if also rather menacing place -- one children will be eager to enter. It's also visually arresting: exuberant and lively and faintly Miyazakian" --New York Times Book Review