The English language is structured for creativity, not for precision engineering. Too many phrases are ambiguous. When I tell my wife “I can’t love you any more!”, am I noting that I used to love her, but am no longer capable of doing so? Or am I telling her that my love is turned up to 100%, that I am utterly and totally in love with her? I’m not telling. Not even her.
The actually cover has shiny stuff instead of white on the lace (which is a good effect) and the title (which makes it hard to read.)
The title to Who’s Your Valentine, Charlie Brown? is similar. Is it asking “Charlie Brown, who is your valentine?” Or is it “Is your valentine Charlie Brown?” Looking at the cover, if the question is the former, then it is aimed at Charlie Brown; if the latter, it’s aimed at Snoopy in which case that might not seem to be a reasonable question. But then one starts to think about what “valentine” means in this context. After all, in some contexts it means simply a Valentine’s Day card; when we speaking of school children giving each other “valentines”, we just mean the card. But those cards often say “be my valentine”, so clearly it’s a request for some personal relationship, and as it turns out, the question is a very good one, because (and I’m going to have to spoil the ending of this 10-page heart-shaped board book here) the climax of the story is that Snoopy gives Charlie Brown a Valentine’s Day card. Apparently, he is requesting that Charlie Brown become his valentine! So the ambiguity of the title is never settled; it is neither lady nor tiger but rests in the same state of uncertainty as Schroedinger’s cat.
This masterpiece of ambiguity is writ by Tina Gallo and illustrated by Vicki Scott.
The mail brought two new Peanuts board books this week, and the web offered up images of another, so I guess that’s the theme for the day. Cheering You On, Charlie Brown looks first at how Charlie Brown has a lot of difficulty in life, but then at how he …
So I got the new board book edition of It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. And, well, it is what it is, a board book edition of a previously-published adaptation. I’m not sure full episode adaptations are absolutely ripe for board books, simply because they’re too long, too much text, for …
I apologize for the lack of reviews in a while. It’s my own fault… and the fault of that new Hallmark edition of A Charlie Brown Christmas which interacts with a stuffed animal. “That would be a great review to do as a video”, thought I. But videos take time to …
