Moving on to our next special Halloween treat, book # 3 in the Bunnicula series. Hope there is vampire bunny in this one!
Bunnicula is missing! Chester is convinced all the world’s vegetables are in danger of being drained of their life juices and turned into zombies. Soon he has Harold and Howie running around sticking toothpicks through hearts of lettuce and any other veggie in sight. Of course, Chester has been known to be wrong before…but you can never be too careful when there’s a vampire bunny at large!
The Celery Stalks at Midnight by James Howe. # 3 in the Bunnicula series. Illustrated by Leslie Morrill. Originally published in 1983, my version is the Avon Camelot September 1984.
FINALLY!! Bunnicula is BACK!! Granted, he is not in it that much, but still… he is in it. Basically, Bunnicula disappears and the rest of the pets decided to go out and try to track him down before anything bad happens. Harold wants to help Bunnicula because he might be lost. Chester on the other hand, thinks Bunnicula’s veggie victims might be turning veggie vamp on us and will start to rampage the whole town. The story is all about the adventure all the pets have outside the house.
This was actually a pretty cute adventure story. Some people complained, saying this book was boring and that nothing really happens. I personally really enjoyed watching the pets wander around town trying to figure out what happened to the bunny. Harold, Chester, and the young pup Howie got into all sorts of crazy hijinks. I thought it was actually pretty clever how the animals (mis)interpreted everything that went on, from stabbing veggies in their veggie hearts with toothpicks to watching Toby and Pete (the kids that live with them) turn into vampires. I enjoyed this book sooooo much more then book # 2, Howliday Inn. Book 2 felt like someone completely different wrote it, but this book felt like much more similar to the first book in the series. It also was back to the horror element instead of just the mystery element, and I enjoyed that a lot more. 😀
I absolutely LOVED the artwork!! The illustrations were just so pretty. All the animals were adorable. Leslie Morrill did a fantastic job. Realistic animals but very expressive in their face and body language.
I really enjoyed this story. It was almost as good as the first book. The Celery Stalks at Midnight was a very short story. It could have easily been a little bit longer. There wasn’t a huge moral to the story, like in Bunnicula. It felt more like it was just meant to be a crazy adventure for the pets to go on, which is fine. The most annoying part to the story was the character Howie, the new puppy that was introduced at the end of the last book. This pup made so many bad jokes that were not funny, and he just turned out to be an annoying little kid. And how can he talk when he is young but Bunnicula supposedly can’t talk because he’s still young? Doesn’t make any sense.
Creature From The Book Lagoon 
Okay, I have got to read these. Don’t the titles crack you up!