Book Title:  The Complete Peanuts:  1965 to 1966

Author:  Charles M. Schulz

Publishing Company:  Fantagraphics Books

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 323

ISBN #:  978-1-56097-724-7  $28.95 U.S. (higher in Canada) 

5 stars 

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner 

I was one of the children who watched the first airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. In 1967, I listened faithfully to my transistor radio hoping to hear the Royal Guardsmen sing Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.  My husband's box of childhood Christmas ornaments includes two versions of Snoopy, his personal choices in a family tradition that had each child selecting a new ornament every year.  In the 1960s, a professor of religion at the college in my community offered a course on The Gospel According to Peanuts.  In 1967, the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown debuted off-Broadway, then became a 1971 Broadway hit.  In 1970, my brother and I spent an entire snow day from school playing the game “Snoopy and the Red Baron” that had one player sending marbles down a chute while the other tried to catch them by raising the lid of Snoopy's doghouse. 

The Complete Peanuts:  1965 to 1966, dailies and Sundays of Charles Schulz's classic comic strips, demonstrates why Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang were such a pervasive part of American culture.  For the past several years, my children have been collecting the volumes of Peanuts strips, starting with 1950.  While it has been enjoyable to see the beginnings of the strip and the introduction of characters, it was the strips of the mid-1960s that truly made Charles Schulz's stamp on the world. 

In this volume, Snoopy is first introduced in the persona of the World War I Flying Ace taking his Sopwith Camel into battle against the Red Baron.  Lucy flirts with Schroeder at the piano while he practices Beethoven's compositions.  Linus, no longer just Lucy's baby brother, comes into his own, a master of philosophy carrying his security blanket and faithfully awaiting the Great Pumpkin.  Charlie Brown, transitioned from prankster to wishy-washy blockhead, trudges on managing his baseball team, fighting the kite-eating tree, pining for the Little Red-Haired Girl, and believing, this time, Lucy will not pull away the football and make him fall flat on his back and kill himself.  The Complete Peanuts:  1965 to 1966 will be a wonderful bit of nostalgia for many, but I envy those who will be experiencing these strips for the very first time.  Good grief!  This is the stuff childhood is made on.