What do you think?
Rate this book
Peanuts Parade / Peanuts Classics #11
Speak Softly, and Carry a Beagle
Snoopy and members of the Peanuts gang continue to ponder the problems of growing up
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
38 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,023 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
March 5, 2020
I loved this book, mostly because it featured one of my favorite characters, Peppermint Patty. It was nice to see her interact with Lucy. There are also strips about school, baseball and of course Snoopy the Beagle Scout. I think my favorites are his Pawpet Theatre performances.
August 3, 2016
These days just about the entire Peanuts strip has been reprinted in beautiful hardcover volumes, each encompassing two-year intervals, by Fantagraphics. But back in the day this reprint series by Holt (now part of Macmillan) was the only way to get the strips after they appeared in the daily papers.
Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle was a special book for its time: as the inaugural entry in the Peanuts Parade series of books, it was 50% thicker and printed at a significantly larger trim size than all the others up to this point. Eventually all the earlier books would be recompiled into this series as well, oddly giving this one a series number of 11, even though it was the first. And in the 90s a third of the book was gutted and it was reprinted with a new cover in a smaller format. So if you're nostalgic for these strips and want to read them 1970s-style, hunt this version down.
In terms of content, this represents just about a full year in the lives of the Peanuts gang, and its placement in the mid-70s means that the strip is at its very peak of intellect and satire before completely losing the very mild edge that it had back then. In a mere five years' time, kids would know the gang more for their commercial endorsements than for the robust psychology and commentary on real adult emotions and anxieties on which these beloved characters are based.
(Note that the Peanuts Parade series was much more successful in libraries than in the general trade, so it can be hard to find these without library bindings.)
Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle was a special book for its time: as the inaugural entry in the Peanuts Parade series of books, it was 50% thicker and printed at a significantly larger trim size than all the others up to this point. Eventually all the earlier books would be recompiled into this series as well, oddly giving this one a series number of 11, even though it was the first. And in the 90s a third of the book was gutted and it was reprinted with a new cover in a smaller format. So if you're nostalgic for these strips and want to read them 1970s-style, hunt this version down.
In terms of content, this represents just about a full year in the lives of the Peanuts gang, and its placement in the mid-70s means that the strip is at its very peak of intellect and satire before completely losing the very mild edge that it had back then. In a mere five years' time, kids would know the gang more for their commercial endorsements than for the robust psychology and commentary on real adult emotions and anxieties on which these beloved characters are based.
(Note that the Peanuts Parade series was much more successful in libraries than in the general trade, so it can be hard to find these without library bindings.)
November 19, 2015
Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle is another compilation of comic strips by the genius Charles M. Schulz. There are quite a few very funny storylines in this book. My favorites usually deal with characters that don't get enough play time; like Peppermint Patty and Schroeder. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the original characters, but it is nice to have storylines that contain some of the smaller players in the Peanuts Universe.
So, if you are looking for some fun reading, pick up any of the Peanuts Parade books. But if you want to know how to use a beagle with an attitude to defend yourself, track down a copy of Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle. You won't regret it.
So, if you are looking for some fun reading, pick up any of the Peanuts Parade books. But if you want to know how to use a beagle with an attitude to defend yourself, track down a copy of Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle. You won't regret it.
December 20, 2010
Peanuts books always get 5 stars. Timeless, gentle humour.
January 2, 2014
Loved the strips in the book.
December 19, 2015
How could I rate a Peanuts book anything less than 5 stars? Never.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews