TALES FROM THE HOUSE OF BUNNICULA #4

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)