Horn Book Review
Dachshund Howie, an aspiring writer, attempts to write a mystery story and a horror novel--each interrupted by excerpts from Howie's Writing Journal, which describes the difficulties he encounters as an author. Young readers probably won't understand that these slight volumes are satirizing the hardboiled detective genre and the Goosebumps series, but they may appreciate the overall humor of the prose and illustrations. [Review covers these Tales from the House of Bunnicula titles: [cf2]Bud Barkin, Private Eye[cf1] and [cf2]Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh's Tomb II[cf1].] From HORN BOOK Fall 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In the latest Bunnicula spinoff, canine author Howie sets his sights on winning a coveted "Newboney" Award, enlisting the advice of heartthrob Delilah, who not only offers cogent advice--"It also helps if the characters are poor and somebody dies . . . or if the main character, usually a child and preferably an orphan, goes on a long journey. Alone. Oh, and it should be a book girls like"--but volunteers her services as co-writer. As chronicled in Howie's handwritten (paw-written?) Writer's Journal, the collaboration quickly degenerates into a dogfight as the two wrangle over a title ("Walk Two Bones," "Delilah, Beautiful and Short"), and pen alternate chapters heavy on either action or character development, but never both. Eventually, a time-travel-horror-coming-of-age tale featuring a basement time machine, two puppies, and a scholarly frog from a previous episode, emerges. After Delilah develops the characters to a fare-thee-well in the final chapter, the last word goes to M.T. Graves, bestselling author of the Fleshcrawler series, who supplies a fulsome blurb. High-nosed puppies cut unabashedly noble figures in Helquist's broadly humorous pictures. Younger readers may have to go to librarians or well-read parents to have some of the in-jokes explained, but for all pup writers, not to mention the next Newboney Committee, this is a "must-chew." (Fiction. 9-11)