Kick the Football, Charlie Brown! (Peanuts)

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Summary: Will Lucy ever let Charlie Brown kick that football?
Review: Adapted by Judy Katschke from the beloved Peanuts comic strips, "Kick the Football, Charlie Brown" focuses on the eternal quest of the title character to run up and kick the football being held by his nemesis, Lucy. Children do not have to recall the plight of the mythological character Sisyphus to enjoy this series of misadventures. This is a Level 2 Ready-to-Read book, which focuses on Reading Independently by introducing children to more-complex stories, varied sentence structure, and paragraphs. "Kick the Football, Charlie Brown" does a nice job of introducing young readers to complex notion of forms, because we do not merely have repetition in the four attempts by Charlie Brown to kick the football, but a progression of form as well. This will help children to develop a sense of anticipation as to what will happen. In this regard Katschke does an excellent job of structuring the episodes and the artwork by Nick and Peter LoBianco certainly captures the look of Charles M. Schultz. Finally, for older readers, who have been enduring the suffering of poor Charlie Brown for decades in regards to his football kicking, there is an actual moment in this story where his book makes contract with the football being held by Lucy. However, parents should avoid ripping this book out of the hands of their children in order to find out exactly what happens.