A Kiss on the Nose Turns Anger Aside (Peanuts Classics)

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Summary: Great Peanuts daily strips from the start of the 1960s
Review: "A Kiss on the Nose Turns Anger Aside" offers up daily comic strips from "Peanuts" from the years 1960-1963, which explains the references to Casey Stengel and the final out of the 1962 World Series when the Giant's Willie McCovey hit a screaming line drive snared by the Yankee's Bobby Richardson for the most dramatic out ever to end a deciding Game 7. You will find within what are probably the best of Great Pumpkin strips, Linus puts together a pumpkin patch that offers nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see, but has trouble staying away on Halloween Night. Then poor Schroeder forgets to celebrate December 16th (and you have to wonder, did Charles M. Schulz do the same?). Meanwhile, Kennedy and Nixon are running for President and Lucy decides that Charlie Brown should become president one day so she can be First Lady. Not surprisingly, these 1960 strips are some of the few in which Schulz comments on the political process (you have to be prince before you can become President, which happens before you become Queen). Of course, politics in America would forever be changed after November 1963, so this is not especially surprising. There are also several strips devoted to the Christmas season and various ways of working Santa Claus for as many toys as possible that will strike a chord with young and old alike. On a more historical note, Snoopy has made friends with a flock of pre-Woodstock type birds and Linus has been told by his ophthalmologist to start wearing glasses (probably the first time the word "ophthalmologist" was used in a comic strip).

Meanwhile, Sally is informed that she has to go to kindergarten (KINDERGARTEN?), because everybody has to go to school (SCHOOL?), so they can become educated (EDUCATED?), which only means trouble ahead for some poor teacher (TEACHER?). With great fear and trepidation Sally goes to school, but refuses to learn Latin. Schulz not only milks Sally's first day of school for all it is worth, there are also several extended episodes dealing with Linus and his blanket (Lucy makes it into a kite which ends up over the ocean and then Grandma takes it away), and some more of those wonderful baseball stories ("How can we lose when we're so sincere?"). These are the years where Linus periodically wore glasses and Charlie Brown's favorite baseball player was sent to the minor leagues. For those of you who picked up on "Peanuts" when you were kids and necessarily missed out on the strips from the 1950s and 1960s, you really should go back and see what you missed. Clearly this period was the heyday of "Peanuts," and comic strips do not get much better than Schulz at his best. Note: Originally these strips were published as "You Can't Win, Charlie Brown" and "You Can Do It, Charlie Brown."

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Summary: "Halloween is over and I missed it!"
Review: A shorter version of this book was published in 1963 as _You Can Do It, Charlie Brown_; it was retitled in 1976 when it was expanded with strips from _You Can't Win, Charlie Brown_ (neat touch, that). The current title comes from the baseball team trying to cheer on their pitcher, then complaining that baseball is supposed to build character, not tear it down by turning them into hypocrites. :)

The book has no introduction, afterword, or anything except various strips of the adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the gang (these are from the days before Woodstock or Rerun joined the strip, though). The strips include, among other things: Lucy 'volunteering' Linus when Charlie Brown decides the team needs a baseball scout; Linus' stint with glasses; the time Lucy made a kite out of Linus' blanket (Air Rescue got it back); the time the whole baseball team quit; the motivational notes Linus' mother puts in his lunch; Linus' blanket-hating grandma. Some threads have a point (they're still funny, so I can't call them serious): Sally's fear of kindergarten.

And, of course, the famous sequence that became part of the Charlie Brown Halloween special: Linus explaining the Great Pumpkin to Sally. (Some of the strips that went into the Christmas special are also in here.)