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I recently came across these two comics and they made me, well, not LOL, but I believe that I chuckled inwardly, silently. My funny bone was tickled.

I didn’t make a big show of it.

Remember back in the early days of the interwebs when people used to type ROTFLMHO (or other body parts)? That drove me insane, because I would immediately envision it. A person actually rolling on the floor — the dirty floor! — rolling! — and laughing like a lunatic. Hahahahahaha. And rolling.

Who does that?

Yet I’d read it multiple times a day. Fortunately, those dark days of the interwebs are gone.

Wait, where was I?

Oh, yes, this, taken directly from my life:

And this:

Thank you, Peanuts, and thank you, Simpsons. Charles and Matt, two masters.

Carry on, writers!

This is way behind the times, but how cool and clever is it that Trombone Shorty was the “voice” of the adults in the new Peanuts Movie? Read the Horn Book’s review of last year’s jazzy picture book Trombone Shorty by Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews; illus. by Bryan Collier.

    

The post Mwah mwah mwah mwah: movies appeared first on The Horn Book.

We spoke with Martino about merging the worlds of 2D and 3D animation, and why a Charlie Brown who is actually recognized and praised isn't much of a stretch for Schulz.

'Star Wars' could generate over $2 billion of merchandise sales in the last four months of 2015.

BOOM! Studios and Fantagraphics Books have established a new partnership with Humble Bundle. The three collaborators have crafted a Peanuts-themed comics package.

Customers can choose between the publisher or a charity as the recipient of their money. Two nonprofit organizations will benefit from this venture: the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Freedom of the Press Foundation. It will be available until Nov. 18, 2015 at 11 a.m. Pacific Time.

Here’s more from the press release: Customers can name their price for: ‘Peanuts: Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown,’ ‘Batter Up, Charlie Brown!,’ and ‘Peanuts Vol. 1-3.’ Those who pay more than the average price will also receive: ‘Peanuts Vol. 4-6,’ ‘Waiting for the Great Pumpkin,’ ‘Peanuts: The Beagle Has Landed, Charlie Brown,’ and ‘Snoopy’s Thanksgiving.’ Customers who pay $15 or more will receive all of the above plus: ‘The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 Vol. 1,’ ‘Peanuts: Where Beagles Dare!,’ and ‘Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron.'”

Charles Schulz's Charlie Brown always failed, then triumphed, then failed, and so on. According to critics, "The Peanuts Movie" pretty much does the same.

Charles Schulz's Charlie Brown always failed, then triumphed, then failed, and so on. According to critics, "The Peanuts Movie" pretty much does the same.

Learn how 'The Iron Giant,' 'Shaun the Sheep Movie' and other animated standouts came to be at Spark's annual conference.

If there is one person who loves Halloween it was Charles Schultz…or at least he loved comic strips about Halloween. His creation of The Great Pumpkin created some classic comic strips and an indelible animated special. Over at the Peanuts Studio Blog, curator Denis St. John has been collecting vintage Peanuts Halloween images and here […]

• I mention to folks that in my new job I actually don’t work day-to-day with children’s books all that often anymore and they wonder how I’m coping.  As it happens, I’m just ducky.  Since my spare hours are just as chock full of kidlit as before, I honestly don’t feel like I’m missing too much.  I still read my reviews and get my galleys.  But occasionally something will be published and I’ll be hit by an overpowering wave of self-pity.  This week’s, “Why Didn’t I See That?!” kvetch-fest?  Peanuts: A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz by Charles M. Schulz, illustrated by Matt Groening, Raina Telgemeier, and Jeffrey Brown amongst MANY others. And it’s a 2015 title at that.  Waaaaaaaant.

• Meanwhile, another very cool looking book was recently released.  Jules at the Kirkus version of 7-Imp has the skinny on The Complete Alice a.k.a. what you can get me for Christmas.

• I think I could be happy if I just spent the rest of my life reading snarky reviews of that darn rabbit book. First there was Travis.  Then Roger.  And yes, I know that the more we talk about the bunny monstrosity the more time it will take before it goes away.  But we have such a lovely literary community there of mutual appreciation that when we are actually allowed to dislike something, it has a tendency to go to our heads.  Wascally wabbit.

• Sure, they’re a mammoth publishing entity of massive production and countless staff but . . . awww. Look what Harper Collins did for Harold’s birthday.  Ain’t it sweet?

Hmm. Sounds good at first. The headline reads, “Tired of stereotypical characters in books for girls, this dad wrote his own.”  Then it shows a book of various professions helmed by women in an abecedarian fashion.  It’s no Rad American Women A to Z but it’ll do.  Except . . . when you get to “L”.  I don’t generally get all hot under the collar when folks stereotype my profession, but COME ON, MAN.  Shoot, it’s images like that that kept me out of the profession in the first place.

• File this one away in the It Isn’t Just Me drawer.  Some of you may be aware that before I post an episode of Fuse #8 TV, a series where I interview authors and illustrators in a free and easy manner, I always begin with a bit of “Reading (Too Much Into) Picture Books”.  This is a series where I acknowledge (without actually saying outright) that when a parent reads a picture book too many times to a small child, they start to conjure up some pretty crazy theories about the text.  Well, thanks in large part to a recent New Yorker profile of Sandra Boynton by Ian Bogost, I see that I am not alone.  I’m actually in awe of his take on But Not the Hippopotamus.  The North America vs. Africa vs. Central America theory?  Brilliant!  By the way, my most ambitious re-interpretation will preface my Fuse #8 TV episode this coming Thursday.  Be prepared for a truly wacky one.

• Okay. That’s it. No one’s allowed to quit their blogs anymore.  I like the blogs that I like.  I may not check them every day but I like the reliability of visiting them and seeing something new.  And I get very sad indeed when the best ones fall by the wayside.  I mean, let’s say someone walked up to you and asked, “What’s the best children’s literature blog where real kids review real books . . . and it’s fun to read?”  You would answer without hesitation (if you were me, that is), “Aaron Zenz’s Bookie Woogie blog, of course!”  Well, here’s the thing.  The blog?  It’s had a nice run.  Seven years worth, in fact.  And now it’s done.  Over.  Kaputski.  And we’re all just a little bit sadder today. *sigh*

• Me Stuff: First off, I want to bow down low and thank profusely all the folks who came out for my joint SCBWI-IL/Center for Teaching through Children’s Books welcoming party last week.  It was, without a doubt, the BEST welcome party I have ever had, bar none.  I even signed someone’s cookie (that’s a first!).  If you live in the Chicago area and missed it, never fear.  You could come on out to EPL and see me present on the topic of picture books rather soon.  Yes, the very kind and talented Brian Wilson has allowed me to join him on his annual Best Picture Books Presentation.  I’ll get to talk about some of my too little lauded favorites of 2015, which is just a joy.  Finally, Chicago Magazine interviewed me recently.  They’re using the same photo from my Chicago Tribune interview, which is confusing, but the talk is entirely different.  It was awfully fun to do too.

• In my interview I actually mention The Guinness Book of World Records a fair amount.  Rather appropriate since I recently learned that the book Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table has been selected by the Points of Light Foundation as the book to break Guinness World Record for the number of children being read to in a 24-hour period. Part of the Foundation’s “Read Across the Globe” initiative to raise awareness on the global literacy crisis, volunteers all over the world will read the book next Monday, October 19. Here’s a news article and a tv news report that say more about it.  Thanks to Philip Lee for the links.

• Did you see?  They’re releasing Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman.  Wouldn’t be particularly notable aside from the fact that it’s always nice to see diverse books back in print . . . except something’s a bit different from the last time it was printed.  Did you notice what it was?  Debbie Reese most certainly did.

• In case you missed it (like me) there was a new brouhaha last week.  This time it involved author Meg Rosoff.  There’s a recap over at Reading While White which breaks it down.  Aren’t recaps great?  There should be more of them out there these days.

• Each year I try to write a review of at least one self-published book.  It can be a tricky affair since so many of them make common missteps.  That’s why I really appreciated the ShelfTalker piece When a Self-Published Book Is Done Right.  There really are some great ones out there.  Finding them is often the struggle, but when they work, they work.

• By the way, I just want to give a shout out to The Curious Reader Store over in Glen Rock, NJ.  My buddy Tucker Stone was recently there and he mentioned that they had a particular love for Wild Things there.  Thanks, guys (but particularly Sally)! We do appreciate it.

• Daily Image:

The title of this piece is 15+ Book-Inspired Pieces Of Jewelry For Bookworms, which you’ll see is a bit of a stretch. Still and all, I do like these Labyrinth earrings:

  MORE things to do and get signed at NYCC, with lots ofr preveiws of Abrams Spring 2016 line all at booth #2228 and 2016 Abrams calendars with every purchase over $50.00 while supplies last (limited one per customer). And advance copies of the above book about Alan Turing by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis.  Advance […]

Everybody is uploading pictures of themselves as Peanuts characters, so I had to try too. Man, this Peanutized app is spot-on!

A dedication ceremony, open to the public, will take place on October 1st.

The families of artists often play a big role in maintaining the legacies of famous cartoon characters.

The most extensive look yet at Steve Martino's reinvention of "Peanuts."

Is the Peabody Awards the only prestigious awards event that actually 'gets' animation?

Fox has released a second teaser for Blue Sky's "The Peanuts Movie."

In Celebration of 50 Years on TV for A Charlie Brown Christmas, enter to win a Santa Snoopy book prize pack! Giveaway begins December 6, 2014, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends January 5, 2014, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

If you love animation, you'll want to check out this list of animated features that will be released in 2015.

There is something quintessentially American about peanut butter. While people in other parts of the world eat it, nowhere is it devoured with the same gusto as in the United States, where peanut butter is ensconced in an estimated 85% of home kitchens. Who exactly invented peanut butter is unknown; the only person to make that claim was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the chief medical officer at the Sanatarium, the fashionable health retreat in Battle Creek, Michigan. Kellogg, a vegetarian who invented Corn Flakes, was seeking an alternative for “cows’ butter.” He thought puréed nutmeats might work, and in the early 1890s Kellogg experimented with processing nuts through steel rollers. He served the nut butters to his patients at the Sanatarium, who loved them. Remarkably, in less than a decade peanut butter would emerge from the province of extremist “health nuts” to become a mainstream American fad food.

America’s elite visited the Battle Creek Sanatarium to recover their health, and many fell in love with the foods served there—particularly peanut butter. It soon became a passion with health-food advocates nationwide, and newspapers and magazines quoted vegetarians extolling its virtues. A vegetarianism advocate, Ellen Goodell Smith, published the first recipe for a peanut butter sandwich in her Practical Cook and Text Book for General Use (1896).

Homemade peanut butter was initially ground in a mortar and pestle, but this required considerable effort. It was also made with a hand-cranked meat- or coffee-grinder, but these did not produce a smooth butter. Joseph Lambert, an employee at the Sanatarium, adapted a meat-grinder to make it more suitable for producing nut butters at home. He also invented or acquired the rights to other small appliances, all intended to simplify the making of nut butters. These included a stovetop nut roaster, a small blancher (to remove the skins from the nuts), and a hand grinder that cranked out a smooth, creamy product. In 1896, Lambert left the Sanatarium and set up his own company to manufacture and sell the equipment.

Lambert mailed advertising flyers to households throughout the United States, and some recipients who bought the equipment started their own small businesses selling nut products. As nut butters became more popular, these machines proved inadequate to keep up with demand, so Lambert ramped up production of larger ones. He also published leaflets and booklets extolling the high food value of nuts and their butters. His wife, Almeda Lambert, published A Guide for Nut Cookery (1899), America’s first book devoted solely to cooking with nuts.

Vegetarians — who at the time practiced what we may now consider veganism — enjoyed all sorts of nut butters, which weren’t simply novel spreads for sandwiches but also sustaining, high-protein meat substitutes. But peanuts were the cheapest nuts, and it was peanut butter that dominated the field. It was first manufactured in small quantities by individuals and sold locally from door to door, but before long, small factories sprang up and peanut butter became a familiar article on grocers’ shelves. The American Vegetarian Society (AVS) sold peanut butter and actively promoted its sale through advertisements in magazines. In 1897 the AVS also began promoting the sale of the “Vegetarian Society Mill,” with an accompanying eight-page pamphlet encouraging vegetarians to create home-based peanut butter businesses. Vegetarians all over the country began to manufacture commercial peanut butter. The Vegetarian Food & Nut Company, in Washington, D.C., sold a product called “Dr. Shindler’s Peanut Butter” throughout the United States for decades. The company also produced private-label peanut butter for grocery store chains, and non-vegetarians quickly adopted the tasty new product.

The Atlantic Peanut Refinery in Philadelphia, launched in December 1898, may have been the first company to use the words “peanut butter” on its label. The term was picked up by other commercial manufacturers, although a New Haven, Connecticut, manufacturer preferred the term “Peanolia,” (later shortened to Penolia), and registered it in 1899.

By 1899, an estimated two million pounds of peanut butter were manufactured annually in the United States, and by the turn of the century, ten peanut-butter manufacturers competed for the burgeoning US market. From its origin just six years earlier as an alternative to creamery butter, peanut butter had established itself as an American pantry staple and a necessity for schoolchildren’s lunch pails.

Headline image credit: Peanut Butter Texture, by freestock.ca. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Peanut butter: the vegetarian conspiracy appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Nothing says Halloween like Charlie Brown, Linus and the Great Pumpkin. Fantagraphics, which has been publishing all of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts strips in chronological order, has also starting putting out charming gift books based on themes Earlier this year they did a baseball themed one, and for the holidays, they’ve produced Waiting for the Great Pumpkin and Snoopy’s Thanksgiving.

The Halloween book reprints the classic tale of Linus’s belief in the Great Pumpkin, in the face of great adversity. If only he had been waiting for the Great Pumpkin Spice Latte.

It doesn’t get better than this. And here’s a preview:

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To the average cartoon viewer, SpongeBob is SpongeBob and Bart Simpson is Bart Simpson, but cartoon connoisseurs recognize that characters evolve over the years, not just personality-wise but graphically.