Charles Schulz and Peanuts

Categories: Entertainment , Nonfiction , Arts & Crafts

After the unwrapping of gifts en masse in the basement of my grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve, there wasn’t much left to do.  So I spent the evening in the big red armchair by the fake fireplace reading things in their magazine rack.  The Peanuts comic strip books were my favorites.  I read the same ones year after year.

Little did I know it then, but Peanuts will always be associated with my childhood.  Through Charles Schulz’s strips, I have fond memories of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang.  But how much do I actually know about Schulz himself?

Author David Michaelis has just written a new book called Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography that traces Schulz’s life from his modest beginnings as the son of a Midwestern barber to an icon of American popular culture.  He realized his dream of creating a newspaper comic strip, yet was lonely and never fully understood by the people who adored him.

I’ve learned that Snoopy was based on Schulz’s childhood dog Spike; there really was an unattainable little red-haired girl named Donna Mae Johnson who jilted him in 1950; and his cartoons reveal more about his life than I ever knew.  If you love Peanuts, you might also enjoy:

• The Complete Peanuts, 1965 to 1966 the latest in this series
• Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz edited by Chip Kidd
• Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi with George Winston
• You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown: The Broadway Musical