Writing Japanese, I think I’m writing Japanese, I really think so…

New releases

My main goal of ordering Peanuts books from Japan was to get a copy of the new Japanese edition of Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects, the book that I co-wrote for the Schulz Museum. After all, I want to have Peanuts books and I want to have books that I’ve written, even in other languages, so I needed a copy of this…and publishers are not always well organized when it comes to getting writers foreign editions. The book is large — as large as the English edition, and it actually needs the space more, because whenever there’s a picture of something with text on it, whether it’s a comic strip or a letter from Schulz, they need to put the Japanese translation beside the image.

I’ve had my books translated into other languages before, and it is always weird to see text that I wrote — in this case, even text that bears my printed signature — that I cannot read. When I set to purchase this, I thought it was the first time I’d be translated in Japanese… but I was wrong. More on that to come.

 

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 …

New releases
Double Love

Simon Spotlight has dropped two books for the Valentine’s Day Shopping Season, and they’re pretty similar. Love is Everywhere, Snoopy! is a board book that is supposed to be Charlie Brown explaining love to Snoopy (who is said to have asked, which raises the usual how-does-Snoopy-communicate-to-Charlie-Brown question.) Charlie Brown answers …

New releases
“Books”

My grocery shopping today landed me two new Peanuts “books”. The more bookish of the two is the latest edition of The Great Big Book of Peanuts Word Seeks, volume 5 to be precise, which as I’ve mentioned before I’ll allow to qualify as a book… particularly because it not …