Encyclopedia Brown has met his match
- By : Nat
- Category : Classic finds
Yes, I know I’ve not yet finished chronicling the books I got in that shipment from Japan, but Dr. Mrs. The AAUGH Blog wanted a scan of the new item the AAUGH Blog Reference Library received yesterday, and as long as I was at it, I reckoned I might take care of posting about this. I know some of you are going to like this.
Charlie Brown Detective is a pamphlet, a single folded page, published by the National Association For The Prevention Of Blindness in 1967. Unfold it, and you’ll get two Peanuts strips on Sally’s eyesight — one on Charlie Brown giving her an eye test, the other after she’s already wearing her eyepatch to address amblyopia. Then there’s all the text for parents about what to look for in a child’s eyesight, what can be done, further resources, all the really important not-Peanuts stuff that they are using Peanuts to get you to read.
But it’s the cover that really makes the thing. For those of us who are both Peanuts buffs and Sherlock Holmes fans, getting Charlie Brown wearing a deerstalker is a delight.
It wasn’t until I had to come up for a title to this entry that I realized that the title might have been inspired by Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, the 1963 book that launched a series. Sure, Charlie Brown detects Sally’s eye problems in one of the strips inside, but it’s hard to fully justify the title from that. (But the editor in me says that with the cover text all in the asme font, it really needs a comma or colon after Brown.)
Much thanks to AAUGH Blog Reader Caren of CollectPeanuts.com for pointing me toward a copy when she saw that one was available; she understood my lust for this item.
