Bunnicula ¦ Howliday Inn

A literate dog, named Harold, is the narrator of this unusual story of a vampire rabbit. Harold lives with the Monroes, an American family with two sons and a cat, Chester. Bunnicula is a baby rabbit discovered in the cinema during a Dracula film by one of the Monroe boys. At first the new pet seems harmless enough but Chester isn't convinced and then strange things start happening: white tomatoes with 'suspicious marks in the skin', for instance.

Those juniors willing to suspend their disbelief sufficiently will very likely enjoy this extremely tall tale; I however found it just too far fetched.

Also narrated by Harold, more obviously American and even more far-fetched is Howliday Inn. This story tells of Harold and Chester's visit to Chateau Bow-Wow (or Howliday Inn as Chester renames it) when the Monroes take a holiday. Again Chester assumes the role of detective, allows his fertile imagination to run riot and it is not long before he has a pair of dachshunds classed as werewolves and another of the residents as a murderer.

Yes, there is a mystery and a crook (not a murderer though), but the latter is a human, one of those in charge of the kennels, and the mystery is nothing like that imagined by Chester and, more latterly, Harold himself. But then that's the whole point of the story. Readers who liked Bunnicula will probably also be amused by this rather longer, very shaggy dog story.