11/4/13 update: 
 I just reread this again at the end of October. I had been reading Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, which I had picked up for a bit of light reading since it was short. I soon discovered that "light" ain't in it for Mr. James, and I couldn't read it in bed at night while I was nodding off, so I had to find something else for that period of the evening. In keeping with the season, I chose something else marketed as "spooky," and decided it was time once again to reread this. I'm so glad I did. 
 It was a real treat to see an admirable writing style in a kid's book after reading a Junie B. Jones book a few months ago, an experience from which I still haven't fully recovered. Bunnicula won 10 awards, though none of them are exactly prestigious. But I would like to point out that the 10 awards mentioned were "Children's Choice," and I believe that is more important... Wait a second... Stand by... 
 Damn. Junie has six Children's Choice awards. And it outranks Bunnicula on the NEA's "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children" list. What is wrong with people? Well, just because Junie B. is outranking Bunnicula and pals in the rest of the world, it doesn't do so here, so take that, you grammatically challenged little bitch. 
 And now I've made my update about something other than Bunnicula. I'm sorry about that, Mr. Howe. To be clear, your book is much better for many reasons, and it is a pleasure to read. My rating stays the same for the same reasons stated below. However, I will state that my rating for this would be a solid four stars, not three, without the nostalgia factor which, of course, took it up to five. 
 -Pierce 
 ORIGINAL REVIEW 
 Bias alert. I think this was the first novel I ever read; I think I was eight. I have a friend who was reading War and Peace when he was eight, but who cares; this was a personal triumph. I think it took me three or four days to read it back then. I read it in two hours about 10 or so years ago. I was just going through the old books on the bookcase, saw it, thought I'd just check a chapter for old times' sake, and ended up reading the whole thing. It was still a good book. A vampire bunny that drains the juice out of vegetables in the house in the middle of the night, and a dog and cat who try to kill it by driving a steak (yes, steak, not stake) through its heart... How can someone not like that? 
 So, while this wouldn't get five stars normally because it's just silly kid's story (probably three or four), the nostalgia factor carries it the rest of the distance.