New releases

Review: The Complete Peanuts Family Album

There have been enough Big Books About Peanuts that the trick on writing them is to find a new angle. The angle for The Complete Peanuts Family Album is to do a deep dive, covering all of the characters in Peanuts, anyone who had a name and a few who didn’t. This …

New releases

Snoopy’s Letters to Santa

After doing a rather strange little we-won’t-accept-the-coupon-so-you-have-to-order-online-use-the-coupon-there-and-have-them-ship-out-the-book-to-the-store-which-you-then-come-pick-up-even-though-we-have-copies-just-sitting-here-on-the-shelves dance with my local Hallmark store, I finally have a copy of Letters to Santa, a new hardcover Peanuts storybook written by Bill Gray and illustrated by Rich LaPierre. This starts with the kids writing letters to Santa (something they did in the strip), …

New releases

The Coloring of Money

Why spend $6.99 apiece for two volumes of unlicensed Peanuts pictures printed out of ratio when you can get both in one volume behind a hideously-designed cover for a mere $9.99??? That’s the question that Snoopy Coloring Book Volume 1-2 is designed to answer. I don’t know which part of it …

New releases

Where’s the Peanuts Gang?

One reasonable reaction that one can have to the cover of A Charlie Brown Christmas Wrapping Paper Activity Book is to say “where’s the Peanuts gang?” There’s about 20 character visible in the skating scene on the cover… almost all extras to fill out the scene. Only Pig-Pen, Violet, Snoopy and Woodstock …

New releases

The AAUGHtober Joy of a Charlie Brown Christmas

So, I’ve received my copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas Wrapping Paper Activity Book, and so I’m prepared to answer the most vital question of our time: does it qualify for our list of book adaptations of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Well, let’s see. What it does have: A find-a-word puzzle …

Classic finds

Insecurity is a need to parody

AAUGHtober keeps bringing me interesting things. I’ve become somewhat obsessed with Kanrom, a 1960s publisher of humor publications, often with a raunchy and/or Jewish bent. I’ve talked previously about the fact that they published not one but two parodies of the best-selling Peanuts book Happiness is a Warm Puppy in 1963, entitled Happiness …

New releases

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! Again!

Did you ever have the suspicion that the entire world was secretly scheming to make your life difficult? Well, you were wrong. That was just paranoia. Because the entire world is scheming just to make my life difficult, not yours. Take, for example, the new book Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!, which is …

Animated Peanuts

It be Charrrrlie Brown Christmas, me hearties!

Today is not just one of the greatest days of the year, it’s TWO of the greatest days of the year: International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and the day when the year’s first new book edition of A Charlie Brown Christmas is released.  And this edition is an all-new adaptation, …

Discounts

Hot Wheels hot deals

I’m used to Hot Wheels charging several bucks apiece for licensed character cars, so when I saw this series of six Peanuts cars for $1 at my local Ralphs grocery store (with membership card, natch), I scarfed them up without pausing to think “do I really need Hot Wheels cars?” …

Franklin

It’s Hockey Time, Franklin!

It’s Hockey Time, Franklin! is yet another kids picture book with a story that borrows bits from strip continuities but builds its own stories. In this tale, Peppermint Patty is trying to use the pond to practice her figure skating when a gang of bullies tries to take over the …