Creepy-Crawly Birthday by James Howe

As I learned doing my Author Study on James Howe, he has written a lot of books! I was excited to find several more examples of his books about the characters in Bunnicula. Delighted to have found one of the Harold and Chester chapter books, I settled in for a good read. I was not disappointed.

The same crazy paranoia of Chester is alive and well, along with the easy-going nature of Harold that keeps the characters a bit grounded. Again acting as the writer, Harold tells about a special birthday for one of the Monroe boys that was disrupted by the crazy antics of their adored pets (Harold, Chester, and Howie--Bunnicula doesn't contribute to the frenzy).

This is a simple beginning picture book with lots of illustrations to supplement the text. The Monroe family is trying to have a normal birthday party, but the pets are too preoccupied with the "surprise" and wondering if another pet is on its way into their family.

Reading the story, I kept guessing what the surprise was and was unhappy about turning the page and seeing a huge snake head slithering out of the boxes. I'm not a reptile fan and it was a big snake head! The chaos these loose animals created was similar to last week's episode of Desperate Housewives where all the children went running and screaming (that was due to a monkey that had attacked a clown) and in the book due to the animals bum-rushing the kids. This was a cute story with a sweet ending and happy times again for the Monroe family.