Review: Snoopy Gets a Name
- By : Nat
- Category : Not That Charlie Brown
In the past, I’ve reviewed a couple of pre-Peanuts books about dogs named Snoopy… but my latest find is just a bit different. It’s about a white kitty, and her name is Snoopy. And that’s a fact you might quickly glean from the tile: Snoopy gets a name. Which, let’s face it, is a horrible title for a book. I mean, it ruins the entire development, let’s you know the ending right off. They should out a spoiler warning before that title.
Snoopy gets a name (lack of title capitalization is their fault, not mine) was written by Marion M. Dryer, drawn by Mary Gehr, and published in 1946 by The Children’s Company. While this is Dryer; only book, Gehr not only illustrated a fair number of books, but also had a larger fine art career, with a large number of one-woman shows.
The tale is pretty basic: this white Angora kitten is the most exploring-oriented one of her litter, strays far from momma and gets into a bunch of different things, but is loved by momcat in the end, and because of all the snooping around she does, gets named (spoiler warning) “Snoopy.”
The opening paragraph is “Snoopy. What a funny name for a fluffy, little, white Angora kitten. You’d think it would be Snowflake, or Snowball, or Whiteface, or, well, just ANYTHING but Snoopy!” And there it lost me; seems like a reasonable name for a cat to me.
I cannot recommend this book aimed at the 5-8 crowd to any fifty-something year olds unless they’re obsessively buying anything with Snoopy in the title, in which case this is a prime example.
