Hilda and the black hound

Gr 3-5-While Pearson's wide-eyed, turquoise-haired protagonist goes about joining the Sparrow Scouts and learns some handy skills from building campfires to erecting shelters, a large, "wolf-like" creature prowls about Trolberg. People have gone missing, and a sighting of the hound ends Hilda's first camping trip. Back home, more mysterious happenings occur; all over town, Nisse (those furry-faced house spirits that live behind bookcases and the "gaps in the floorboards") are being tossed out in the street, forced to fend for themselves. After a face-to-face with the hound, Hilda sees an opportunity to earn her first scout badge, which thus far has eluded her. She visits the library, digs up newspaper articles, draws sketches of the creature, interviews townsfolk who may or may not have seen the creature, maps the locations of suspected sightings, and puts together a Common Core-worthy, book-length report earning her "Friend to Animals" badge. Unfortunately, the award ceremony is interrupted by the hound falling through the ceiling, but in the chase that ensues several mysteries are solved, including that of the Nisse's displacement. Sound like a lot of plot? It is, but Pearson pulls it off with aplomb. The full-size volume offers a minimum of 10 panels of varying sizes per page. Darker shades dominate when the beast lurks, and earth tones and reds and oranges when the characters go about their daily business. Touches of humor abound in both images and dialogue. A book sure to garner new fans for this feisty adventurer.-Daryl Grabarek, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In a never-a-dull moment third outing, blue-haired Hilda joins Sparrow Scouts, finds out where lost household items go and meets some of Trolberg's supernatural residents.As if sightings and news reports of a huge black beast in Trolberg aren't troubling enough, an increasing number of nisses, helpful but sometimes-mischievous domestic sprites, are being ejected by human homeowners for supposed bad behavior. Meanwhile, Hilda's patchy efforts to earn her camping and other scouting badges are derailed by her concern for the newly homeless nisses and other distractions. Finally, one befriended nisse shows her how to enter a special space that, being the sum total of all out-of-the-way and unreachable nooks, is cluttered with misplaced bric-a-bracand that turns out to be where the "Beast," who is just a lonely oversized dog, is lurking when it's not barreling destructively through houses. Pearson puts a dozen or more cartoon panels on each page, but his art is so simply drawn that the action is always easy to follow. Also, he adds not just gnomic nisses, but other small creatures, natural or otherwise, to his scenes and places Hilda so that she's always easy to spot. In the end, she both exonerates the nisses and saves the dog from hunters.Though definitely an underachiever when it comes to merit badges, Hilda's broad curiosity and willingness to stand up for the undergnome will make her a winner in most readers' eyes. (Graphic fantasy. 7-9) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.