The Joy of Peanuts

When I was a boy, my sister and I had a collection of paperback Peanuts comic books. Of course, I loved A Charlie Brown Christmas and all the other Peanuts television specials. But back then, we didn’t have video on demand, dvds, or even video tapes. So, we could only watch each show once a year when they aired on network television.

The rest of the time, I got my Peanuts fix from reading the comics.

I really related to Charlie Brown. And the messages in the written form were perhaps even more poignant, and humorous, than the TV shows. I remember reading those comics over and over.

My son has been a huge fan of the Peanuts videos for many years now. I often wondered why he was so attracted to them from such a young age when they did not have as much of the outrageously silly humor that usually draws the attention of young kids.

Even now, on our weekly trips to the public library, Kai always picks out a Peanuts video to bring home, even though he has seen each one many times now.

A few years ago, my sister gave me a hardcover book that was a comprehensive collection of the best Peanuts strips. It brought back fond memories of reading those strips when I was a child.

A couple years ago, I tried reading him some of those comics to Kai. But he had only mild interest in it, and I decided to put it aside until a later date.

This week, he picked up the book on his own, and began reading it all by himself.

Every day, he sat at our kitchen table and read pages of the old comics. Sometimes he laughed, and I could tell he was enjoying them. Other times he read quietly, as I often did. We often had a hard time pulling him away from the book to do other things.

Kai often takes interest in things that are very different from the things I am interested in, and that is okay. But it is also nice to see him enjoying the things I enjoyed as a boy. Regardless, it is great to see him picking up something and reading on his own.

Thanks, Charlie Brown.