Hilda: The Wilderness Stories: Hilda & The Troll / Hilda & The Midnight Giant (Hildafolk Comics)

I love this book so much - great design and lovely to see sketches and processes as well as finished drawings. Mine arrived damaged (Amazon's fault) but still worth purchasing!

I really wasn't expecting to love this as much as I did...Hilda is a little girl who lives with her mum in a small wooden shack in the wilderness. As she adventures through the vast surroundings she meets a whole host of creatures, and new friends.In this book we get the first two Hilda stories; Hilda and The Troll, and Hilda and the Midnight Giant. The first introduces us to our main cast of characters; Hilda, her mum, Twig the deerfox, and the Woodman. We also see our young adventurer encounter her very first rock troll, while in the second story we're introduced to both huge giants and tiny elves as Hilda learns more about the place she lives.The first story is quite short, but an absolute joy to read. It introduces a whole world full of incredible creatures so naturally and effortlessly, whilst also managing to fit in a nice moral about not judging others by their appearance.The second story was my personal favourite though as we got to spend some more time with Hilda as she discovered the hidden elf town that was right on her doorstep all along. On top of that we also get a really sweet love story between two giants, all told with a gentle sense of humour. Again there was a moral that asks us to treat others as we would like to be treated, and to think about how our actions could affect others.This is a truly all ages book. As a 37 year old male I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it would be really great for young readers, especially if youre trying to get them into comics for the first time! If you think of the magical world brought to life in Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's Oz books, combined with the humour and wimsy of The Moomins comic strips, then you'll get an idea of the tone of this book.I'll certainly be looking out for more Hilda in the future!