The complete Peanuts 1953 to 1954

The second volume in a series reprinting the 50-year run of the beloved comic strip Peanuts sees the cast continuing to develop into the characters that won worldwide affection. In these 1953-54 strips, Lucy is younger than most of the other kids, and Linus is an infant with a propensity for toppling over. Snoopy is thoroughly doglike, fetching balls and howling at the moon. Charlie Brown is already the put-upon victim, and Lucy an inveterate fussbudget. All the kids behave like kids--1950s kids, who play cowboys and Indians, spacemen, and jump rope. Occasionally, the humor is topical, with a Liberace gag here, an H-bomb reference there (Schulz soon realized that such things detracted from the strip's timeless quality). The most notable additions of 1953-54 are perpetually messy Pig Pen and Linus' security blanket. Though Schulz continued refining the strip, his blend of quiet humor and psychological insight was there from the beginning. As Walter Cronkite notes in the introduction, with those few short lines, he created a panorama of life's experiences. --Gordon Flagg Copyright 2004 Booklist

This second thick volume in The Complete Peanuts makes for a delicious wallow in a nostalgic world that has a lot more bite than readers may recall. Although some feel that Schulz's later work assumed a certain predictability, his early strips are undeniably crackling. Schulz portrays a children's world that's anything but idyllic, complete with fusspots, tortured artists, exclusive clubs, insecurities and kites that refuse to fly. One strip shows Lucy destroying Charlie Brown's puzzle, kicking Schroeder's piano and stomping on Linus's cookies; the final panel shows her fleeing, pursued, moaning, "I'm frustrated and inhibited and nobody understands me." Another strip depicts the harsh reality of unpopularity; the illustration shows section after section of fence scrawled with graffiti that reads "Linus loves Violet. Shermy loves Patty. Lucy loves Schroeder. Charlie Brown loves Charlie Brown." It's said Schulz's work draws on his own experiences, and this becomes especially clear when Charlie Brown himself decides to draw a comic strip and doesn't get the public response he'd hoped for. (His work is about a man who decides to ride across the country on a lawn mower.) The Peanuts landscape is the familiar neighborhood, with trees, sidewalks, sandboxes, ball fields and remarkably generic interiors. As always, the illustrations are a marvel of simplicity and the insights are haunting. (Oct. 5) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved