ALA Booklist (Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2006)

Although she doesn't receive title billing in this Andy Shane book, bossy Dolores Starbuckle is still a pain-in-the-neck to Andy Shane. Andy does not want to go to Dolores' birthday party, especially since it's being held on Halloween. When pranksters smash her prize pumpkins, however, he helps her by hatching a plan to unmask the culprits, and finds the perfect present for Dolores in the bargain. Jacobson's kids act just like the real thing, and Carter's ink-wash artwork adds just the right comic dash. Not just for Halloween or birthday storytime, this is a book ripe for reading year-round.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

In their second book, Andy and Dolores try (and fail) to stop neighborhood vandals from smashing the Halloween pumpkins on Dolores's front porch. The characters' complexity, revealed in simple text with natural language, is the strength of this book. Soft watercolor pencil and wash sketches outline the plot; spot art depicting potentially unfamiliar vocabulary provides an extra boost for beginning readers.

Kirkus Reviews

Andy Shane and his sometimes enemy/sometimes best friend Dolores Starbuckle are back and ready to celebrate Halloween. Dolores's birthday falls on the holiday and, of course, she's having a party. Being the bossy girl that she is, she ropes Andy into helping plan it, taking a full two days of clipboard clutching, decorating and making everything perfect. Unfortunately, neighborhood hoodlums mar the plans by twice smashing Dolores's porch pumpkins. Andy and Dolores put their heads together for something more than party planning and execute a little counterattack of their own, making this Halloween the start of a great friendship. With hilarious yet familiar situations, frequent pen-and-ink illustrations, accessible vocabulary and two characters filled with the feisty spirit of a very young Ramona Quimby, Jacobson's offering is the perfect treat for newest readers. (Fiction. 5-8)

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3-Andy Shane does not want to go to bossy Dolores Starbuckle's birthday party, but when he learns that his grandmother has volunteered to help out with it, he's trapped. Dolores tells Granny and Andy that some tricksters have broken all of the jack-o'-lanterns on her street, and the children consider different methods to catch the vandals. In the end, Andy invents his own clever solution to the problem and realizes that Dolores isn't so bad after all. Attractive pen-and-ink illustrations help move the story along. An entertaining, easy chapter book for holiday collections.-Linda Staskus, Parma Regional Library, OH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.