Return to Howliday Inn (Bunnicula Series #5)

by James Howe Narrated by Victor Garber

Overview

Harold, Chester, and Howie return to Chateau Bow-Wow, and it's as creepy as ever. The Monroe pets alongside cat burglars, Felony and Miss Demeanor, with Hamlet, a Great Dane, and Weasel (a weasel, of course) , work together to solve the mysterious disappearance of fellow boarder named Rosebud.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Howe here brings back the amusingly articulate cast of animal characters introduced in Bunnicula and later featured in Howliday Inn , The Celery Stalks at Midnight and Nighty-Nightmare . The author generously peppers this caper with his trademark puns and snappy one-liners, which are all the more droll for coming from the mouths of canine narrator Harold, dachshund puppy Howie and quick-thinking Chester the cat. These pets spend the week of their owners' vacation at Chateau Bow-Wow, a boarding kennel where they meet up with Felony and Miss Demeanor, tough-talking ``cat burglars''; Bob and Linda, dogs sporting stylish caps; and Hamlet, a melancholy old Great Dane. Convinced that someone is about to do them in, this wacky menagerie masterminds a mass escape from the kennel and manages to reunite Hamlet with his lonely owner. Howe's fans will find this as scrumptiously silly as his critters' earlier adventures. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)

School Library Journal

Gr 2-5-Harold, Chester, and the gang are back in this audio version of James Howe's light-hearted children's mystery classic (Atheneum, 1992). Chester has been reading up on paranormal experiences and correctly predicts that the suitcases in the Monroe front hall can only mean the worst--a family vacation without the pets. Harold, Chester, and Howie are soon dropped off to board at the dreaded Chateau Bow-Wow, site of a previous infamous adventure. There they meet Hamlet, the melancholy Great Dane, the cat burglar sisters Felony and Miss Demeanor, and yuppie puppies Bob and Linda, who have arrived with their own nouvelle cuisine dog treats. The Monroe pets' dread is well-founded, and they work to solve a mystery that includes a buried dog collar, talking bones, and Hamlet's disappearance. Adults will enjoy the literary puns sprinkled throughout the work. Narrator Victor Garber gives a very enjoyable reading, and is particularly good with the characters' distinctive voices. This enjoyable performance will be an excellent addition to school and public library audiobook collections.-Maura Smith, Somerset Elementary School, Prairie Village, KS Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

From the Publisher

"As scrumptiously silly as his critters' earlier adventures." — Publishers Weekly

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171524548
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/10/2008
Series:	Bunnicula Series
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

The Omen

It was the third straight day of rain. The third day of listening to Mr. Monroe whistle the score of The Phantom of the Opera through his teeth while indexing his collection of meatless soup recipes. The third day of Mrs. Monroe's saying, increasingly less cheerfully, "Channel Six says it's going to clear by morning." The third day of Pete whining about what a rotten summer it had been and Toby asking When was it going to stop because how could he try his new skateboard? and Were they going to go on vacation even if it kept raining? and Why couldn't they ever rent the movies he wanted at the video store?

Not that the Monroes were the only ones getting, shall we say, edgy. No, even we pets -- we who ordinarily exemplify a calm acceptance of fate to which humans can merely aspire -- even we were losing it. My first inkling of this came when I found Howie racing around the basement on his little dachshund legs going, "Vroom, vroom."

"Uh, Howie, what are you doing?" I asked.

"It's the challenge of my career, Uncle Harold," Howie panted excitedly. "I'm chasing hubcaps at the Indianapolis Five Hundred."

I would have had a little reality chat with Howie then and there if I hadn't caught myself that very morning gazing into the mirror on Mrs. Monroe's closet door and wondering if the time hadn't come for me to try something different with my hair.

Even Bunnicula, usually the calmest of us all, had taken to hopping around his cage as if the floor were covered with hottar and twitching his nose so rapidly you would have thought he'd suffer from whisker burnout.

Surprisingly, only Chester seemed unaffected by the elements. Or perhaps I should say that if he was affected, it was not in the way one would have anticipated. As the rest of us grew more irritable, Chester mellowed.

"How do you do it?" I moaned on the third night, as the rain continued to pelt the windows and I tried in vain to find an acceptable spot for settling down to sleep. At this point, every square inch of carpet looked the same and I was desperate for a change. Chester, meanwhile, was curled up happily shedding on his favorite brown velvet armchair, an open book in front of him and a contented-on-its-way-to-becoming-smug smile on his face.

"Why aren't you going crazy like everybody else?" I demanded. "What's your secret?"

His smile grew more knowing. "Books," he said, with a nod to the one in front of him, "are not only windows to the world, dear, Harold, they are pathways to inner peace."

I shook my head. "I've tried books," I said. "'Fifteen minutes and all I ended up with was cardboard breath."

"Try reading them instead of chewing them," Chester advised.

"Oh." This hadn't occurred to me.

Chester is a big reader. The problem is that his reading often gets us into trouble -- especially considering the kinds of books he likes to read.

"So what are you reading about now?" I asked. "The supernatural?"

"The paranormal," he said.

"Well, that's a relief. Pair of normal what?"

"No, Harold, not a 'pair of normal,' the paranormal. How shall I explain this? The paranormal are experiences that are...beyond explanation. Like Bunnicula, for example."

Chester believes our little bunny is a vampire.

"Or Howie."

"Howie?"

"I'm still convinced he's part werewolf. That's no ordinary howl on that dog."

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Or,"Chester went on, if I may use the expression with regard to a cat, doggedly, "haven't you ever felt that something was about to happen, you just knew it in your bones, and then, bam! it happened?"

A chill ran down my spine. "Chester!" I cried. "I had a paranormal experience just the other night."

Chester's eyes lit up. "Really? Tell me about it, Harold."

"Well, it was after dinner and I was lying over there by the sofa, where Howie's sleeping now and...I was yawning and I felt my eyes growing heavy..."

"Yes? Go on."

"And I had this overpowering feeling that I was about to..."

"What, Harold? Oh, this is really exciting. Go ahead."

"That I was about to fall asleep. And I did."

Chester looked at me for a long time without speaking. "And do you have the feeling that you're about to experience pain?" he asked at last.

"You mean right now? Well, no."

The book fell off the chair. It landed on my paw.

"Ow!" I cried.

"Never discount the paranormal," were Chester's parting words, and he jumped down and headed toward the kitchen in search of a midnight snack.

I wanted to whimper but no one was around or awake enough to hear. This made me ask myself the question, If a tree falls on a dog in the forest, does the dog make a sound? I was eager to share this provocative conversation starter with Chester when my gaze fell on the open pages at my feet. I began to read.

Harriet M. of Niskayuna, New York, reports the fascinating case of the phantom telephone conversation. "I had been talking with my sister, Shirley for seventeen minutes late one afternoon before I noticed that the phone plug was disconnected," she writes. "The next day I told Shirley what had happened and when. Stunned, she informed me that she had had oral surgery just two hours prior to the phantom conversation and her mouth was wired shut. She would have been incapable of speaking to me even if the phone had been hooked up!"

Incredibly, Harriet herself suffered such extreme tooth pain the following day that she too was forced to undergo emergency oral surgery. While under the effects of anesthesia, she recalled her sisters words during their nonexistent (??)...

Return to Howliday Inn. Copyright © by James Howe. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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