What do you think?
Rate this book
Povero Charlie Brown!
THE SEVENTH VOLUME IN THE CLASSIC CHARLES SCHULTZ PEANUTS COLLECTION!PEANUTS and its creator, Charles M. Schulz are arguably the world's most famous newspaper comic strip and cartoonist in history. The Peanuts cartoon strip holds the distinction of being the world's longest continuing story, running for a staggering 17,897 strips from October 1950 to February 2000.Peanuts tells the story of meek, nervous Charlie Brown (a boy incapable of flying a kite, hitting a baseball or kicking a football), his dog - Snoopy and his group of childhood friends as they tackle the complexities of modern friendships, crushes, first loves, siblings and kicking a touchdown.This collection of 248 daily Peanuts newspaper strips that appeared between 1957 -1959, includes the strips where Charlie Brown revealed that his father was a barber and his mother was a housewife.The strip's bitter-sweet humour and child-like innocence helped to cement the Peanuts comic strip's popularity and secure its reputation as a true, one-of-a-kind, timeless classic.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
1 person is currently reading
35 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,022 books1,636 followersCharles 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.”
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.”
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 19, 2025
ADORABILI NEVROTICI
I Peanuts hanno settantacinque anni (1950 la prima apparizione): da allora non sono invecchiati, ma non sono neppure diventati grandi. È rimasto un mondo abitato solo da bambini dove gli adulti non si vedono mai.
Ma nel mondo di queste “noccioline” non c’è più innocenza, non c’è meno frustrazione, non ci sono meno desideri e illusioni e ambizioni non realizzate del mondo dei “grandi”.
C’è, però, minor capacità di iniziativa e adattamento. Hanno meno libertà e meno potere. Meno scelta.
C’è forse altrettanta ‘depressione’, ma credo sarebbe meglio definirla malinconia.
E ciò nonostante, si sorride sempre guardando queste vignette. Quando proprio non scappa la risata.
Credo sia questa la grandezza di Schulz: di riuscire a essere leggero mentre è duro, di riuscire ad addolcire mentre è desolante. Quale altra striscia arriva a tanto?
Questo gruppetto di bambini accumula sconfitte.
Mica solo Charlie Brown che non riesce mai a far volare l’aquilone senza incastrarlo nei rami di un albero malefico, e non ce la fa a calciare la palla ovale perché la perfida Lucy gliela sottrae sempre all’ultimo istante: se così non fosse, Linus non avrebbe bisogno della sua copertina, Schroeder non si nasconderebbe dietro il piano sormontato dal busto del suo idolo Beethoven, Lucy non sarebbe così nevrotica e burbera, gli amori infantili si coronerebbero e invece rimangono sempre inappagati.
L’intera pattuglia dei Peanuts sembra pronta per una terapia psicoanalitica. Singola e/o di gruppo.
O, se non altro, di sostegno psicologico.
L’unica eccezione è il cane, Snoopy: lui ha la sua casa e l’arreda come vuole, corona i suoi sogni, può essere asso dell’aviazione della Grande Guerra o scrittore. Anche perché, alla resa dei conti, quello cui davvero punta è una cuccia calda e una ciotola piena di cibo. Entrambi risultati che porta a casa ogni giorno.
I Peanuts hanno settantacinque anni (1950 la prima apparizione): da allora non sono invecchiati, ma non sono neppure diventati grandi. È rimasto un mondo abitato solo da bambini dove gli adulti non si vedono mai.
Ma nel mondo di queste “noccioline” non c’è più innocenza, non c’è meno frustrazione, non ci sono meno desideri e illusioni e ambizioni non realizzate del mondo dei “grandi”.
C’è, però, minor capacità di iniziativa e adattamento. Hanno meno libertà e meno potere. Meno scelta.
C’è forse altrettanta ‘depressione’, ma credo sarebbe meglio definirla malinconia.
E ciò nonostante, si sorride sempre guardando queste vignette. Quando proprio non scappa la risata.
Credo sia questa la grandezza di Schulz: di riuscire a essere leggero mentre è duro, di riuscire ad addolcire mentre è desolante. Quale altra striscia arriva a tanto?
Questo gruppetto di bambini accumula sconfitte.
Mica solo Charlie Brown che non riesce mai a far volare l’aquilone senza incastrarlo nei rami di un albero malefico, e non ce la fa a calciare la palla ovale perché la perfida Lucy gliela sottrae sempre all’ultimo istante: se così non fosse, Linus non avrebbe bisogno della sua copertina, Schroeder non si nasconderebbe dietro il piano sormontato dal busto del suo idolo Beethoven, Lucy non sarebbe così nevrotica e burbera, gli amori infantili si coronerebbero e invece rimangono sempre inappagati.
L’intera pattuglia dei Peanuts sembra pronta per una terapia psicoanalitica. Singola e/o di gruppo.
O, se non altro, di sostegno psicologico.
L’unica eccezione è il cane, Snoopy: lui ha la sua casa e l’arreda come vuole, corona i suoi sogni, può essere asso dell’aviazione della Grande Guerra o scrittore. Anche perché, alla resa dei conti, quello cui davvero punta è una cuccia calda e una ciotola piena di cibo. Entrambi risultati che porta a casa ogni giorno.
February 20, 2023
Delizioso!
Ho fatto un salto indietro nel tempo. Certe gag nonostante siano datate, restano attuali.
Ho fatto un salto indietro nel tempo. Certe gag nonostante siano datate, restano attuali.
September 12, 2021
Povero Charlie Brown. Povero, perché nel suo mondo senza adulti tocca ai bambini affrontare tutti i problemi. Povero, perché tra il nevrotico Linus e l'insicura ma autoritaria Lucy egli deve portare avanti il suo idealismo e i suoi valori, cercando di continuare nonostante i suoi insuccessi. Povero, perché vessato da un cane più umano degli umani, cui è impossibile non voler bene nonostante tutto.
In questa breve raccolta delle stupende strisce di Schulz, trova un'esemplificazione magistrale il suo stile statico e sintetico, che con pochi tratti riesce a restituire una carica filosofica immensa. Riesce a farci sorridere e a farci empatizzare con questi brevi tratti di penna, a farci sentire come uno di loro e a farci auspicare di poter affrontare i problemi con la stessa ingenuità.
Ad arricchire il volume, la prefazione di Vittorio Spinazzola, che mette in evidenza le peculiarità dei Peanuts e dei singoli personaggi.
In questa breve raccolta delle stupende strisce di Schulz, trova un'esemplificazione magistrale il suo stile statico e sintetico, che con pochi tratti riesce a restituire una carica filosofica immensa. Riesce a farci sorridere e a farci empatizzare con questi brevi tratti di penna, a farci sentire come uno di loro e a farci auspicare di poter affrontare i problemi con la stessa ingenuità.
Ad arricchire il volume, la prefazione di Vittorio Spinazzola, che mette in evidenza le peculiarità dei Peanuts e dei singoli personaggi.
March 25, 2019
I read it in Italian for practice. Having read Peanuts all my life, there wasn’t much new territory covered, but it was fun.
Fun fact: “Misericordia” (Mercy!) is how Charlie Brown says “Good Grief!” in Italian.
Fun fact: “Misericordia” (Mercy!) is how Charlie Brown says “Good Grief!” in Italian.
March 20, 2011
Quote:
Snoopy:
OWOOOO
I cani ululano alla luna da più di cinquemila anni
La luna non si è mossa, i cani sono sempre cani...
Tutto ciò significa qualcosa, ma non so cosa!
Snoopy:
OWOOOO
I cani ululano alla luna da più di cinquemila anni
La luna non si è mossa, i cani sono sempre cani...
Tutto ciò significa qualcosa, ma non so cosa!
Read
April 8, 2013Non iniziato
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews