The Other Side of Hugless Hill

The Other Side of Hugless Hill
written and illustrated by Mark Mariano
self-published
Price: $9.99
Roar Score: 5/5

We picked this one up a few weeks back at Baltimore Comic-Con. There’s an absolutely fantastic kids area at that con, and there’s always a ton of great stuff to choose from.

The Other Side of Hugless Hill is a an adorable picture book / graphic novel that’s aimed at the younger end of the “all-ages” spectrum. In other words, my 3-year-old loves it.

The story is about two little monsters looking for friendship in an unfriendly place–a place where they don’t fit in. Mella and Greenbo are our two little monsters, and here they are. Aren’t they cute?

They live on opposite sides of Hugless Hill, thus the name of the book. The title phrase (On the other side of Hugless Hill…) is used repeatedly throughout the book as a signaling device to young listeners that we’re about to switch to the other character.

If the littlest Roarbot is a reliable judge (and I like to think that he is), then this is a surefire winner. It’s his current favorite book, and we have to read it several times in a row.

The story delivers a lovely message about friendship and staying true to yourself, but the nicest feature of the story is that every character is named. Yep. I can’t tell you how many times Sam will point to a random character on the page (in any book) and ask who it is. Often, I have to make up names. In The Other Side of Hugless Hill, all of the monsters that appear are given silly names, such as Fum-Fum, Niffy, and Ting-a-Ling.

And believe me, Sam needs to know who each of them is.