Hilda and The Stone Forest, being the fifth book, probably isn’t the best place to start, but it’s not at all a bad place to start, either. There are certain threads that run through the books, but each has its own conflict and drama that is introduced, escalated, and resolved…for the most part. Hilda, her mom, and even Twig are such strong and universally recognizable characters that one need not know exactly who they are and how they came to be they reveal themselves almost instantaneously. While Pearson’s books lead one into the next in an ongoing narrative, each is also fairly complete on its own. The world of the Hilda books is like the one in fairy tales, like the one people generations ago sincerely believed they lived in, and, perhaps most relevantly, like the one that children feel they live in, particularly when they are at play. He actualizes and modernizes the traditional, superstitious, folk tale version of the Old World, where sprites, spirits, and supernatural creatures regularly rub elbows with regular, everyday people. Insatiably curious and excitable, Hilda regularly finds herself in fairly fantastic adventures, which, in the Scandinavian-inspired half-fantasy world Pearson has built for her, isn’t too terribly hard to do. Hilda is a little blue-haired girl who lives with her mom and her fox-with-antlers pet Twig, first in a remote mountain cottage and then, later, in the city of Trolberg. If you’re not yet familiar with Hilda, let’s rectify that immediately.

The stone forest hilda