Charlie Brown and Friends

by Charles M. Schulz

What began in the funny pages in 1950 has developed into an enduring classic. Whether you're a fussbudget like Lucy, philosopher like Linus, Flying Ace like Snoopy, or a lovable loser like Charlie Brown, there is something to touch your heart or make you laugh in Peanuts.

Charles Schulz's Peanuts is one of the most timeless and beloved comic strips ever. Now AMP! helps carry on that legacy with new collections of Peanuts classics focused around topics sure to resonate with middle-grade readers. Second in the series is Charlie Brown and Friends. Whether it's the curious relationship between a bird, Woodstock, and a dog, Snoopy, or the never-ending crush that Peppermint Patty has on Charlie Brown, the gang's interactions are what make Peanuts resonate with kids.

First published in 1950, the classic Peanuts strip now appears in more than 2,200 newspapers in 75 countries in 25 languages. Phrases such as "security blanket" and "good grief", which originated in the Peanuts world, are now part of the global vernacular, and images of Charles Schulz's classic characters Charlie Brown kicking the football, Lucy leaning over Schroeder's piano, are now universally recognized.

Together these books will introduce a new generation of kids to the lovable cast in time for the new animated Peanuts movie, which hits theaters in 2015!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Fiction, Childrens, Graphic Novels Comics, Classics

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Charles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peanuts is an old favorite of mine, and this collection of strips brought back fun memories.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned:
“You know what? Yesterday I was almost happy… for one brief moment I thought I was winning in the game of life…but there was a flag on the play!”

I thought that maybe one would maybe happy nostalgia, but no, I think that this might be my go to series for the year now - a perfect balance of life lessons alongside realistic reflection and humour - just wonderful

[Subashini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This includes the bits where the School Building talks back, and is therefore perfect. Nothing less than five stars.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wholesome little read. I enjoyed the humor. It was at times very punny and also very cheesy, but it was enjoyable. I found that it took me a little while to read this when compared to most books, which made me enjoy it more because it felt as if it were more wholesome.
I enjoyed how this book went through the various seasons from summer, fall, spring, and winter. I enjoyed reading about Charlie Brown and his friends and their various (mis)adventures.
I just want to give Charlie Brown a hug sometimes and say, "It'll all be okay, Chuck!"
But seriously...Where are the parents of these kids??? Why is Lucy so mean? When will Charlie Brown get to kick the football without falling on his face?
Like the age old question in regards to how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world just in fact, may never know.

[Penny Ayotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say...I enjoyed it as much now as I did when I was a kid

[Yee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I'm not a big fan of the Peanuts comics, I enjoyed reading this collection of classic comic strips. Some of them are motivational, and a good laugh off. You can't get this style of drawing anymore, and you really miss the good old days of comics.

[Lady Foxreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This year I will only read comics 🤣🤣

[Melissa MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

you will be laughing when you read this book 😹😹😹

I LOVE IT 😻 have fun with your time reading this book 📖 I hope it will be a great post

[Ziza Coelho · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too many baseball jokes, and overall, not for me

[Joseph Ryan-Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is about a young boy called Charlie brown and he's a baseball team manager but his team never win a game.

I like this story because it's very funny and entertaining.

My favourite part is when Charlie brown says that he'll kick Lucy of the baseball team.

Yes I would recommend this story

[☺Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute comics featuring Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang.
Linus is my favorite! (I hope that I don't get chomped by a night snake or by the new improved Queen snake!)

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of different comic stripes! Baseball, talking school, and Lucy complaining. What could be better!
😊Happy Reading 😊

#LibbyApp #CharlesSchulz #CharlieBrownandFriends #comic

[Gb · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was so cute oh my god

[Slow Man · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first peanut collection. Definitely not my last.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The truth is I'm not the biggest fan of the Peanuts comics so in a way my rating for this is unfair- if I was a fan, I would definitely have rated this a 5. A very sweet collection.

[Ephraim]

wooooooooooooooooooo

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a LOT of Peanuts in here, although there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the strips included. Based on the art, I'm guessing these were from later in Schulz' life, but there's nothing that really sets its era other than it definitely not being the early days (the presence of Sally, and the character designs being very much set).There were several storylines I know I've never seen before (Charlie's head turning into a baseball, competitive snowman building, Rerun's Baseball experience).

It seems to focus a bit more on the sports side of things - lots of Baseball strips, but then there are side stories like Sally's weird relationship with her elementary school building. And there's a larger than usual presence of religion in some of the strips, which is something I usually only see around the Christmas strips.

I don't think I laughed at anything in here, which is a curiosity - while Peanuts is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, it will usually earn a chuckle or two. But this book mainly survives on nostalgic memories of the characters, the excellent color work added to the original strips, and a weird coincidence around the prominence of Joe Shlabotnik, who I had just heard mentioned on a podcast the previous week. It's definitely not the strongest Peanuts collection I've seen (Snoopy plays a very minor role, so no Red Baron highlights), but it is interesting in how far from the expectations of the characters it seems to wander.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've loved Peanuts my whole life; my grandmother's favorite saying was "Good Grief Charlie Brown!" Reading this volume of Peanuts comics was a nostalgic pleasure for me. I loved how some of the strips went in a series along the same topic, such as moving through the baseball season, as well as how we slowly transitioned from spring to summer to fall to winter. Each of the characters inhabited the role we've come to know and love them for, and were represented through familiar actions from Lucy yanking the football to Sally's whimsical notions of speaking to the school building to Snoopy's leisurely naps on top of his doghouse. With colorful, classic drawings and cheesy jokes, and always a hint of morality at its core, Peanuts is a timeless classic.

[Ronald Schoedel III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always fun to read the old comics, brings back memories of looking forward to them in the newspaper, especially the Sunday comics section in color. (But speaking of color, there are a few errors in here: the publisher added color to the old black and white strips, but occasionally colored what should have been snow as green grass, and Charlie Brown seems to be wearing a red shirt through most of these strips.) That aside, there were some good classic story lines in here. Fun stuff.

[Heinz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich bin ein grosser Fan von Snoopy und auch natürlich von den anderen Menschen von Charles M. Schulz. Hier kommen alle Figuren gleichmässig vor - und Charlie Brown darf als Hauptfigur selbstverständlich im Zentrum stehen. Beim Lesen wechselt das Schmunzeln mit dem Nachdenken ab - so wie es bei den Peanuts eben sein soll...!

[Westin Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the simple yet distinct art style, and some strips were really good, which is enough for me to give it 3 stars. But overall I was disappointed. About half of the strips’ punchlines fell flat. And this is supposed to be a collection of the best of them. I guess Peanuts is one of those things that was groundbreaking for its time, but not for people experiencing it way later.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of an overwhelming amount of sports stuff! And I’m not a graphic novel person, which is essentially what this amounts to. Interesting to see a lot of Peanuts comics, though. Oh! If you flip the pages quickly, the football on the edges moves.

[eveltrain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlie Brown is the greatest. His life is as relevant now as when it originally published. He’s funny and sad and always thought-provoking. Activities and websites included at the end of the book. I recommend reading Charlie Brown and Friends.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this book seemed familiar; the work was probably included in Peanuts: A Golden Celebration. That didn't matter, though; it was all enjoyable and there was a smile on my face throughout the entire book.

** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED **

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Brown is still as wishy-washy as ever. The long-suffering eight year old who loves baseball, and as the pitcher and manager of his team does his best to have a winning season. Share in the laughs as all of his friends try their best to help him in his quest to find his way in the world.

[Maddie L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always enjoy a comforting Charlie Brown & snoopy comic collection book:)) getting to read all the different scenarios, wisdoms from the characters, Charlie brown’s baseball adventures makes me fall in love with the peanuts gang all over again!!

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavy on "The Doctor is In" strips & conversations of the kids at the brick wall, so a classic. Lots if baseball too. Loved it, but I love the Peanuts, so it is hard to give an unbiased review!

[Wasif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious book, So fun to read.

Charlie Brown's Baseball experience.

[Ashlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Peanuts are always great comic strips! Love these now and loved these when I used to read them in newspapers when I was younger too.

[Jaden⚡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

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