Eat Your Poison, Dear (Bunnicula) [Paperback]

James Howe (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bunnicula

Cafeteria food may be hazardous to your health.

Poor Milo Groot -- he's sprawled on the cafeteria floor, his cracked glasses inches away from his white face. Could it be the apple chili dogs?

Could it be poison?

Kids at the middle school are dropping like flies, and Sebastian Barth suspects there's something fishier than tuna dreamboats behind the epidemic. The trouble is, too many cooks have had the chance to spoil the stew.

Sebastian finds out.

At least he thinks he does, but he soon discovers that whipping up a dramatic disclosure without all the ingredients is a recipe for disaster.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As original and well constructed as Howe's Stage Fright and What Eric Knew, this is the third in the series that stars the smart teenager Sebastian Barth. In the cafeteria at Pembroke Middle School, Sebastian and his friends are aghast when the "inspired" cook, Miss Swille, celebrates apple month with apple lasagna, apple chili dogs and other offenses. Nobody is surprised when Milo Groot is sickened after lunch. Even when he seems to have been poisoned, the students react mildly: Milo is universally disliked and his classmates joke that anyone could have slipped a toxin into his food. At first, only Milo suffers. Later, however, 77 school children are made seriously ill and hospitalized, a fact that the principal tries to cover up as a flu epidemic. Sebastian vows to find out the truth and publish it. Readers will be intent on unraveling the mystery and be dazzled by the triple shock in the windup.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6 This mystery centers around the sudden illness experienced by students in Pembroke Middle School's cafeteria. Milo, class nerd, is the first to be stricken. Other students soon succumb, and the official explanation for the epidemic is "flu." Suspicions surface: could it be poisoning? Veteran cafeteria manager Miss Swille comes under question, as does Harley, school "toughie" and leader of the small but visible Devil Riders. Young sleuth Sebastian and his friend David set out to solve the mystery. Despite a deliciously sinister cover (and title), this mystery is less than gripping. Several extraneous plot elements interfere with the momentum of Sebastian's investigation, and the young peoples' conversations strike a false tone that mars the story. Yet it should appeal to children who enjoy school stories, and is an adequate addition to junior fiction collections.Cynthia Percak Infantino, Lake Forest Library, Ill.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689803397
• ISBN-13: 978-0689803390
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #978,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Authors & Illustrators, A-Z > ( H ) > Howe, James

More About the Author

James Howe has written more than eighty books in the thirty-plus years he's been writing for young readers. It sometimes confuses people that the author of the humorous Bunnicula series also wrote the dark young adult novel, The Watcher, or such beginning reader series as Pinky and Rex and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award-winning Houndsley and Catina and its sequels. But from the beginning of his career (which came about somewhat by accident after asking himself what kind of vampire a rabbit might make), he has been most interested in letting his imagination take him in whatever direction it cared to. So far, his imagination has led him to picture books, such as I Wish I Were a Butterfly and Brontorina (about a dinosaur who dreams of being a ballerina), mysteries, poetry (in the upcoming Addie on the Inside), and fiction that deals with issues that matter deeply to him. He is especially proud of The Misfits, which inspired national No Name-Calling Week (www.nonamecallingweek.org) and its sequel Totally Joe. He does not know where his imagination will take him in the next thirty-plus years, but he is looking forward to finding out.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Eat Your Poison, Dear, March 11, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Eat Your Poison, Dear (Bunnicula) (Paperback)

Eat Your Poison, Dear is about a bunch of 8th graders. In the story, after one day at there everyday normal middle school cafeteria a student had gotten sick or so everyone said, he got the flu. Everyone felt sorry for this middle schooler. Need less to say, another student if fact didn't feel that the student had gotten the flu, in fact he had thought that he had gotten poisoned. Every Prembroke Middle Schooler had eatten at that cafeteria before and they had never gotten sick. Until that very day came.....the one kid who knew that it couldn't possibley be the flu, went in and investagated the cafeteria. He decided to ask the lunch aids if he could "help out" in the kitchen. His help out was more like an investagation. He started to kinda interview all the cafeteria staff and start to ask a lot of questions. He had gotten through all the staff members when he came across a staff member that he had not yet interveiwed. Her name was Miss Swille. In the middle of his interview he came across a jar. A lonely jar with little herbs and spices in it. He asked her what she did with those herbs and spices, she replied that she adds them to all school lunches, but only the 8th graders. When she said that she only adds them to the 8th graders lunches, he replied why do you only put them in our lunches but not the 6th and 7th graders, she said because your grade is specail. He replies with an indeed. So after a couple of minutes, Miss Swille said that she had to get back to work so she can prepare for the 7th graders lunches. He said ok i was preety much done anyways. So Miss Swille went into the back kitchen and seem to have forgoten so the student took a small white envelope and sprinkled just a little of her famous herbs and spices into the envelope. He ran back to his house and called his friend and then his friend came running over. He explaind everything that happened with the herbs and spices. So they both were walking out of his house with the small envelpoe and his friend asked where are we going? He said we are going to Milo Groot's house. Milo Groot was really good at finding out what things ment and how to figure out what is in the herbs and spices that Miss Swille is hidding. Now I'm not going to tell the ending because it gets really good. This is a great book if you are the kind of perosn who likes mystery book. This book had a surprising ending and its a great book to read for fun! I would recomend this book to children of the ages to 7 to adult. Its a great book even for adults. Its more of a childrens book but, its a fun book for adults or teens to read too.

3.0 out of 5 stars Do or Die, February 14, 2003

By 

Gay N. Ramsey (Shawnee, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Your Poison, Dear (Bunnicula) (Paperback)

In this story there is a young boy named Milo Groot, and he got food poisoning from the school cafeteria. He gets very sick and his best friend Berry tries to help him figure out who had done it? While trying to figure out the mystery some strange things happen to Milo and Berry. Milo just kept getting sicker and sicker and Berry started to see into the future little by little (none believed him not even Milo). And every time he saw into the future he would feel a lick feeling in his stomach. But that wouldn't stop him! In the middle of the story one of the lunch ladies that they thought had done it got very sick and died, so there went one of the suspects! So the person who was poisoning these kids was younger then 30!
Berry being a good detective that he is, figured out the mystery. Milo seemed to be getting better and better after this event because the lunch lady was into witchcraft and was putting a spell on both boys. But she was putting the wrong spell on Berry and that's kind of why he figured out who did it!

Yes I liked this book! It was very informing, but at some points there was no point and it was very boring. I think I liked it more then I disliked it!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not good, he has written MUCH better books., July 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Eat Your Poison, Dear (Bunnicula) (Paperback)

I usually LOVE reading Howe books. But when I picked up this one I had to put it down again and it took all of my strength to keep reading. It was, I'm sorry to say, VERY boring. There was no humor, nothing worth reading about, and I myself would not reccomend this book to anyone, but a person who can't sleep.