The Complete Peanuts 1961-1962: Vol. 6 Hardcover Edition

Launching into the 1960s, Schulz adds another new cast member. Two, in fact: The obnoxious Frieda of "naturally curly hair" fame, and her inert, seemingly boneless cat Faron. The rapidly maturing Sally, who was after all just born in the previous volume, is ready to start kindergarten and not at all happy about it. Lucy and Linus' war over the security blanket escalates, with Lucy burying it, cutting it apart, and, in the longest sequence of the book, turning it into a kite and allowing it to fly away. Aauugh! In fact, Linus' life is particularly turbulent in this volume, as he is forced to wear glasses, sees the unexpected return of his favorite teacher, Miss Othmar, and coaxes Sally into the cult of the Great Pumpkin (with regrettable results).

Snoopy, meanwhile, becomes a compulsive water sprinkler head stander, unhappily befriends a snowman or two, and endures a family crisis involving a little family of birds. (Woodstock--the bird, and the music festival, for that matter--is still a few years away.) And in one of the strangest continuities in the history of Peanuts, the (off-panel) Van Pelt parents acquire a tangerine-colored pool table and become obsessed with it! Plus baseball blowouts (including a rare team victory), Beethoven birthdays, plenty of dubious psychiatric help for a nickel, and an introduction by Diana Krall.

Author: Charles M. Schulz
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Published: 11/01/2006
Pages: 344
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.02lbs
Size: 6.80h x 8.64w x 1.33d
ISBN: 9781560976721
Audience: Ages 9-12


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 11/01/2006 pg. 38

About the Author
Schulz, Charles M.: -

Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922, in Minneapolis. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip Barney Google). His ambition from a young age was to be a cartoonist and his first success was selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post between 1948 and 1950. He also sold a weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press. After writing and drawing the feature for two years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three counts, he quit.

He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates and in the spring of 1950, United Feature Syndicate expressed interest in Li'l Folks. They bought the strip, renaming it Peanuts, a title Schulz always loathed. The first Peanuts daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6, 1952. Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's Day-and the day before his last strip was published, having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand -- an unmatched achievement in comics.

Krall, Diana: -

Jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall's albums include The Look of Love, The Girl in the Other Room, From This Moment On, Quiet Nights and more. She has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s. and is the the only jazz singer to have eight albums that debuted at the top of the Billboard Jazz Albums. She has won multiple Grammy Awards and Juno Awards.