Highlights 30 years of the Peanuts comic strip, with reproductions of cartoons and anecdotes from its creator.

Linus, Lucy, and the gang celebrate birthdays in excerpts from the "Peanuts" comic strip

Despite--or because of--its huge popular culture status, Peanuts enabled cartoonist Charles Schulz to offer political commentary on the most controversial topics of postwar American culture through the voices of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the Peanuts gang. In postwar America, there was no newspaper comic strip more recognizable than Charles Schulz's Peanuts. It was everywhere, not just in thousands of daily newspapers. For nearly fifty years, Peanuts was a mainstay of American popular culture in television, movies, and merchandising, from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to the White House to the breakfast table. Most people have come to associate Peanuts with the innocence of childhood, not the social and political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. Some have even argued that Peanuts was so beloved because it was apolitical. The truth, as Blake Scott Ball shows, is that Peanuts was very political. Whether it was the battles over the Vietnam War, racial integration, feminism, or the future of a nuclear world, Peanuts was a daily conversation about very real hopes and fears and the political realities of the Cold War world. As thousands of fan letters, interviews, and behind-the-scenes documents reveal, Charles Schulz used his comic strip to project his ideas to a mass audience and comment on the rapidly changing politics of America. Charlie Brown's America covers all of these debates and much more in a historical journey through the tumultuous decades of the Cold War as seen through the eyes of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang.

Good grief-another year has passed! And it's time to celebrate with Charlie Brown. This book is filled with birthday wishes and wisdom from the one and only Peanuts gang. This festival of happiness will delight anyone on their special day, no matter what age. Featuring timeless quotes and classic comic strips to help you get over the fact that you're headed into another year. I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time. —Charlie Brown In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back. —Charlie Brown If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself...just send money. How about tens and twenties? —Sally von Pelt

It's Halloween! Time for ghosts, ghouls, and... the Great Pumpkin? Linus is sure that this year the Great Pumpkin will finally appear. Join Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang for some spooky tricks and hilarious treats in this thirty-fifth anniversary adaptation of the television special!