Hedgehog's Home

With two young children, I am pretty au fait with the works of Julia Donaldson and associated illustrator Axel Scheffler; their books and films are very good, very popular, and very much a safe place for entertainment. The are doing great, and no need to change, but I did think of them as I enjoyed this children's story which is delivered with a similar tone and simplicity of message, but yet has plenty of texture and enjoyable darkness to it. Whether it is Roald Dahl or Adventure Time, children can cope with, and benefit from, a bit of roughness in their media and its content, and this gets the pitch just right in doing that.

As a narrative it is enjoyable, and plays out with a lack of pandering at any point, but not pushing the darker content too far. The moral is simple, but the approach keeps it from ever feeling like it is, or being too sweet/saccharine in delivery. The voicework of Kenneth Welsh (in the English version) sets this tone with a gravelly but yet effective range. The animation though is where it comes together; at first the stopmotion feels like it could have been smoother, but this is part of it - the exture of the felt, the flow of the motion, and the detail of the world all fit with the tone of the story, so it comes together very well.

Not sure if my young ones are quite there for this yet, but certainly it is one I think they would like a great deal.