4.5 stars. 
 Simply drawn, in muted colors (with lots of DARK, of course). It might be a bit scary for some kids, though there is a happy ending. I found The Dark's approach to solving the scared-of-the-dark problem ingenious. One could take a larger lesson here as well, and apply the boy's approach to other troubling issues that won't go away, but instead we need to learn to live with them.