It's curated very thoughtfully throughout. Fully taking it in would've required much more time, as it's absolutely jam-packed with content. I had several weeks to get to know the book before it changed hands. It's definitely nice enough to display or keep on a coffee table, and it certainly makes a great conversation piece. It's just the size I expected each page is a bit bigger than a standard piece of paper. The book is actually fairly heavy since it's made from such nice materials. The cover is super sturdy, the binding looks great, and the pages are thick with a glossy finish.

The book is extremely well-executed on all fronts. Based on her reaction, I'm confident she thought so too. It's fantastic quality, so I really felt like I was giving her something special. I bought this for a family member who adores Peanuts, and it was a huge hit. Fantagraphics should put out a really comprehensive Christmas collection of Peanuts strips - they’d do it right!īut back to The Peanuts Book: except for the major omission of Christmas, it’s a very worthwhile book. Yes, there was a collection several years ago, but it was far from complete, often featuring strips that simply mentioned Christmas in passing, and sometimes dropping Christmas story lines before they were completed. But no Peanuts history is really complete without a discussion of this major holiday as featured in the strip and on TV.Īnd, while I’m at it, let me note that there’s never been a comprehensive collection of Peanuts Christmas strips, and there should be. Perhaps the author thought “A Charlie Brown Christmas” had been written about enough, and it’s true that there’s a book about it, as well as at least a couple books featuring Christmas strips. Any fan of Peanuts knows that Christmas was the basis of a seasonal plot line almost every year, as well as being the subject of the first, best, and most famous of the Peanuts TV specials. Why did I give this otherwise excellent book only four stars? Because Christmas - either as a theme in the strip or in the form of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” - is almost entirely neglected in this book, except for a few passing references. Even The School Building is featured as a character. Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, and Snoopy are there, of course, as are the well-known Great Pumpkin and the Little Red-haired Girl, but so is Charlotte Braun, who came and went in a short time during the 50s. It features original artwork, finished strips, and memorabilia among the illustrations, and provides one- or two-page spread on all of the major characters, many of the minor characters, and some of the themes that recur in the strip. The Peanuts Book is a well-researched and extensively illustrated history of the greatest comic strip.

The Peanuts Book by Simon Beecroft