Well, something happened that should happen a couple more times this year: I received a book titled Snoopy and Friends. This one is for the UK market, and is aimed at youngsters just learning English… well, it’s a Level 2, so it’s youngsters just learning a little more English. This full-color paperback has a couple pages with a basic introduction of the characters, then a couple more introducing some words. Then we get prose-and-picture adaptations of some strip storylines, first the one where Lucy throws Schroeder’s piano into the kite-eating tree, then Peppermint Patty attending obedience school. Then there’s a two-page “real world” feature of pictures and light text about dog training. The last five pages of the book are are activity-oriented: questions to answer, puzzles to solve, a very short play to perform. It all seems smoothly done.

Now, if it wasn’t tough enough that there are three completely different books called Snoopy and Friends coming out this year, this particular book is available in two editions: one with a CD, the other without. So I blew out the budget and got the CD’d edition, which turns out to be a recording of all the text of the book, read in a mild British male voice. The reader does do some character voicing when reading dialogue, but it’s not anything that will fool you into thinking this is some sort of full-cast production. Total running time is about 19 minutes.

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