*NEW BOOKS COMING
*THE LATEST BOOKS REVIEWED
*PRICE NOTES
*CURRENT COUPONS
*PEANUTS PAMPHLET ONLINE
*USED BOOK DEAL
*ODD PEANUTS BOOK: PEANUTS PROJECTS
………………………………………………………….
NEW BOOKS COMING
Sometimes it seems I can hardly turn around these days without discovering some additional Peanuts books are on their way. This time, it’s the next two volumes in the Ready-to-Read series of kids books (more about that series below). IT’S A HOME RUN, CHARLIE BROWN and TAKE A HIKE, SNOOPY are coming in June of 2002. I don’t even have prices for these yet, but you can pre-order them nonetheless…
when the price is set, you’ll get an email asking you to verify your preorder.
Coming in March of 2002 is CHARLES SCHULZ: CARTOONIST AND CREATOR OF PEANUTS, a small hardback biography aimed at the "young adult" market. This is yet another bio targetted at school libraries, at least the third one of these to be announced since Schulz’s retirement (and there were ones before his retirement as well.) Again, available for preorder although the price is not yet set.
For those of you interested in British books, February will bring four more volumes in the Snoopy Features series (which are reprints of the Snoopy Stars series of themed strip reprints.) In this four, SNOOPY FEATURES AS:
…THE MUSIC LOVER
…THE SPORTSMAN
…THE MASTER CHEF
…THE FEARLESS LEADER Three pounds apiece.
To preorder any of these, or just to see a list of other upcoming Peanuts-related books, head to http://AAUGH.com/upcoming.htm
………………………………………………………….
THE LATEST BOOKS REVIEWED
I just read the first three books in Little Simon’s new Peanuts line.
FRIENDS FOREVER, SNOOPY is an entry into Little Simon’s Ready-to-Read line, a general line of kids’ readers with four gradiated levels This is a "level 2" book, aimed at helping kids "read independently". This book takes a number of strips and retells their stories in prose form, using colored versions of the original strip art as illustration. Most of the strips reworked in this book are complete-in-one-strip gags, so it’s more a bunch of mini-stories than it is one big story. And even then, the mini-stories aren’t as good as the strips they come from. Schulz specialized in funny pictures; describing the picture doesn’t have the same impact. I suspect kids will learn as much about stories from reading a book of strips (more, even; the recognition of information flowing from one image to the next is a very powerful thing for kids to learn.) They’ll learn about as much about English, too, just from reading the dialog. And they’ll almost certainly be more amused by the strips themselves. It’s 32 pages with color pictures, cover price of $3.99, but you can get it for $3.59 from http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?0689845979
KICK THE FOOTBALL, CHARLIE BROWN is another "level 2" book, this one retelling various Lucy-pulls-the-football-away strips. It’s a better book, because it really is a single story — CB falling for the trick again and again when deep down, he knows better. And the football strips are largely dialog driven, so a prose treatment is more reasonable for them than for the image-driven Snoopy strips of the other book.
IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN is yet another adaptation of the classic animated special. 32 pages, 10 inches wide, 8 inches high, and all in color. The art is by Paige Braddock…
now wait, before I hear some purist cry out "how dare they have someone besides Schulz drawing the Peanuts characters", let me note that most of the animated adaptations have not been drawn by Schulz. Most of them used art taken from the animation, by Bill Melendez and his crew. The very first one (the original version of A CB Christmas) was drawn by Dale Hale. Paige, a talented cartoonist in her own right (see her Jane’s World strip at http://www.girltwirlcomics.com/ ) also serves as Creative Director at Schulz’s studio. She has set herself a strong challenge here, trying to meld the scenes of the animated show with the drawing style that Schulz had in his later years. The results are mixed — some of the art isn’t obviously not-Schulz (and non-Schulz attempts at Peanuts usually stand out like a sore thumb), while others miss the mark. Faces are perhaps not bold enough, and the line often doesn’t have quite the confidence that Schulz’s had. It’s a good earnest attempt and a worthwhile adaptation, and there’s a real story to be had here. If you want a Peanuts text-and-picture storybook for your kids, I recommend this before the two listed above. Cover price is $5.99, but you can get it for $5.39: http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?068984607X
………………………………………………………….
PRICE NOTES Someone (Hi Linda!) properly took me to task for not listing prices with the books I mention and review in the newsletter. While there are reasons why I do not list them in the catalog (the prices can change at the drop of a hat, and I never know when that hat is dropping), I can certainly put prices in the newsletter that are accurate for when teh newsletter is sent. For the main books I’ve been talking about lately: IT’S A BIG WORLD, CHARLIE BROWN (1997’s strips) lists for $11.95, but we’ve got it for $9.56: http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?0345442709 PEANUTS: THE ART OF CHARLES M. SCHULZ lists for $29.95, but we have it at 30% off, for $20.96: http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?0375420975
………………………………………………………….
CURRENT COUPONS
$5 off a purchase of $35 or more, coupon code: STUDENTSAMEX $10 off a purchase of $65 or more, coupon code: DSCVERCCJULY $15 off a purchase of $100 or more, coupon code: AMZNAMEXBMVD
All of these coupons are good through the end of the month. They’re good on items from the main AAUGH.com catalog — and on anything you order from Amazon after clicking through from AAUGH.com, except auction, used, and z-store items. They do not apply at the AAUGH.com UK catalog, nor to Amazon.co.uk.
………………………………………………………….
PEANUTS PAMPHLET ONLINE
In one of the first AAUGH.com newsletters, I wrote about SECURITY IS AN EYEPATCH, a Peanuts strip collection that had been put out by the US government. This booklet collected 13 strips about Sally dealing with her amblyopia (lazy eye). While this booklet is hard to find, a seemingly respectable opthamology group has put its contents online, presumably with appropriate permission. Find it at: http://med-aapos.bu.edu/Peanuts/Peanuts.html
………………………………………………………….
USED BOOK DEAL
I’ve had good luck lately getting some harded-to-find Peanuts books at reasonable prices through Half.com. If you haven’t shopped there before, I’ve got a deal for you: $15 off a $50 order. It’s only good on books (put not just Peanuts books, of course — and it is college textbook time again!), and it’s only for new customers. For details, go to: http://AAUGH.com/guide/half.htm
………………………………………………………….
ODD PEANUTS BOOK: PEANUTS PROJECTS
Keeping with the "Peanuts books for kids" theme that’s running through this issue, I thought I’d focus on PEANUTS PROJECTS, a Peanuts activity book from 1963. Certainly there have been many Peanuts activity books (with pages to color, dot-to-dots, and the like) over the years. What makes this one odd?
First, it’s huge. It’s about 17 inches tall and 12 inches wide. This is a book for a kid to lay out and fall into!
Second, it doesn’t have any pictures of the Peanuts characters on the front cover! You’d think that if you were promoting a Peanuts product to kids, you’d have Snoopy or Charlie Brown on the cover, but instead there are just pictures of art supplies! The logo isn’t even in a standard Peanuts font. Looking at this, there is no reason to believe it’s about Peanuts-the-strip.
Third, it has a huge array of activities. To quote the first page: "PEANUTS PROJECTS" IS AN "ACTIVITY" BOOK FEATURING ALL THE CHARACTERS (CHARLIE BROWN, LUCY, LINUS, SNOOPY, SCHROEDER, FRIEDA, VIOLET, SALLY, AND PIG-PEN) FROM THE "PEANUTS" COMIC STRIP BY CHARLES M. SCHULZ. THERE ARE SONGS, CHARADES, STAMPS, LUCY’S SECRET CODE, A "PEANUTS" PLAY, MASKS, CHARLIE BROWN’S BASEBALL CAP (YOU CUT IT OUT, BRAD IT TOGETHER, AND WEAR IT), POST CARDS, PEN-PAL WRITING PAPER, A CROSSWORD PUZZLE, CONNECT-THE-DOTS, FLIP BOOK (SEE SNOOPY DANCE), A JIGSAW PUZZLE (ON THE BACK OF THIS BOOK), CUT-OUTS FOR CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS OR MOBILE, A PORTRAIT OF THE "PEANUTS" FAMILY, A PAPER DOLL, AND A RECIPE FOR SNOOPY COOKIES. YOU WILL NEED A PENCIL OR PEN, CRAYONS, PAINTS, SCISSORS, PUSH-PINS, PASTE, BRADS, AND WHATEVER IS REQUIRED IN THE RECIPE….HAVE FUN!
With all that in there, I certainly doubt this book would be easy to find in mint condition. My copy is missing a large number of pages, and most that remain have chunks cut out of them or are written on.
My copy does have the one-page, 3-act play The Great Pumpkin Mystery (although not the masks that were meant to be used in the play.) Basically, the kids all decide to spend Halloween in the pumpkin patch with Linus, to prove that the Great Pumpkin doesn’t exist. Then what appears to be the Great Pumpkin rises from the Pumpkin patch — but it turns out just to be Snoopy. Remember, this is not only four years before the debut of You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown (thus making it the first published Peanuts play), it’s also three years before the animated special It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown would mine the same strip material! Truly, a book before its time.
This book was published by key Peanuts licensee Determined Publications (publishers of the Happiness Is A Warm Puppy line of books, among other things.) On the page of postcards, they list an address to write to the Peanuts gang — it’s Determined’s PO Box.
………………………………………………………….
Well, this has turned out to be an unexpectedly long newsletter. That should keep you up-to-date for a couple weeks!
As usual, if you’re updating your email address or just want to get off the newsletter list, let me know. And if there’s anything you want to know or that I could be doing better, tell me!
–Nat proprietor AAUGH.com
