You’re Adjective, Charlie Color!

PMadLibsAmong the recent rush of Peanuts books is Peanuts Mad Libs. For the few of you who don’t know the Mad Libs books, this is a game where one player gets the other player to give them a list of words of various types (“give me an adjective, a verb ending in “ing”, another adjective” etc.) which are then filled into blank spots in a story to create a vastly silly result, if all goes well. This book simply applies that game to short stories about the Peanuts characters – really, largely discussions of the characters (“Linus’s blanket makes him feel safe and ADJECTIVE. But this handy NOUN can also be used in other ways, such as:”) Covering Peanuts in text is always tricky, but I imagine the results will be largely as fun as the typical Mad Libs. I do wish they’d tried a few pages of plugging words into comic strips. (I experimented with basically that format in a book I created, The Most Adjective Romance Comics Ever!) Still, this is cheap fun in both senses of the term.

New releases
A different kind of coffee table book

If you have a coffee table, you should have a “coffee table book”, a large, heavily illustrated color volume that your guests can easily and casually flip through, (Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects is a good choice, of course.) But you …

New releases
Review: Snoopy (Classic Cartoon Character Bios)

The Abdo Kids : Classic Cartoon Character Bios books are blatant stuff-to-fill-school-libraries material. Sturdy hardcovers, lots of pictures, 24 pages, little text – about 250 words. The Snoopy volume uses Snoopy images from just about anywhere: strips (appropriately licensed), animation, photos, The Peanuts Movie publicity materials. And the simple facts it …

Classic finds
A needle-ssly fine present

Being a) an adult and b) not a Christmasian, it makes sense that I’m not given much in the way of Christmas presents. This year’s haul was just two items, both given by Dr. Mrs. The AAUGH Blogger: a Terry’s Chocolate Orange (yum!), and this Peanuts embroidery book from Japan. …