Peanuts by Charles Schulz for December 18, 2023

Read a comic book.

Dick and Jane

People often spend more time and effort trying to get out of doing something than it would take to actually do what they’re trying to get out of.

Sports Illustrated sells one called ‘My First Book of Baseball’ for kids; that might interest Patty…

Peppermint Patty should consider Chuck’s Plan B there.

Way back, Charlie Brown was assigned “Gulliver’s Travels” on vacation. When griping to Violet (or old Patty?), she annoyed him by saying she already finished it in study hall. He spent the break playing and watching TV, all the time fretting how he really should be getting it done. In the end he pulled an all-nighter, bleary-eyed at the bus stop in the morning. Another bit of Peppermint Patty channeling one of Charlie Brown’s problems. She also picked up his habit of unrequited love (for CB himself), albeit more disastrously proactive.

Trust me, I’d have tried to get out of it too, if it were done at my grade school and high school. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

Just read the bleeding book. Blimey!

Read “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. Nice and short, with a twist of cosmic irony. And it’s appropriate for the season.

Ask the librarian for stories about baseball players. I’ll bet you’d enjoy one of those. Or, if you really can’t deal with it, read the synopsis on the book jacket.

Hopeless – is she literate at all? (We bears have only oral tradition but we always do enjoy a good story.)

Pick a book you’ve already read.

Patty should be glad she doesn’t have the internet yet to distract her. It should make finding a book easier. Surely the teacher has some suggestions.

Charlie Brown read War and Peace by himself once.

Good move on P.P.’s part. She is talking to the Master Procrastinator.

Click! “Hello? Hello, Chuck. Are you still there?”

Looking for the legal loophole, PP?

Ask Calvin

I believe Charlie is suppose to be in second grade. Average reading vocabulary should be about 500 words.

Read a book, Patty; it won’t kill you.

“Monday Starts on Saturday” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

My Algebra teacher assigned us 100 problems to do during Christmas break. I never liked him after that.

I call this the “Beetle Bailey syndrome:” spending more time and effort to avoid work than it would take to actually do the work.

How about dog training 101.

Hysterical blindness?

War and Peace, DVD, Hollywood version. Call of the Wild, DVD, Hollywood version.

I never knew at the time that this was the reaction of kids with dyslexia.

How about “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton?

OMG Patty! Just get a short book and read it! It’s not as if you were assigned math homework; I’d have sympathy for you then

Come on Peppermint Patty, just read the book, it won’t hurt much and you might perchance enjoy it.

I had a book assignment and then an essay over Christmas break one year. There used to be a comic “Classics Illustrated” I think? Anyway, that is how I did my essay, was from that comic. Got a B on the report.

Is this the same girl who about 6 months ago graduated with a diploma from the Dog Obedience School? She seems to be rather disobedient to her teacher – even though she doesn’t need a teacher anymore since she has already graduated.

Reminds The Count of the times when as a young whippersnapper, The Count’s father would take him to the magazine store and news stand on The Pike, directly across from the police station, where The Count could pick out a Classics Illustrated comic book for just such occasions while Dad went into the curtained off back room to make investments in his retirement plan with the bookies who worked there. The pinball machine paid off, too, and there were punch cards under the counter. Tru dat. Tis’ the Season to Be Nostalgic.

Philosophically, I’ve come to realize that, though I like to read, I still hate (or dislike—-hate might be too strong a word) every work of literature I had to read for school. Several of them, I liked other work the writer had done, but not the one that was a school assignment.

I loved when teachers assigned reading. What I hated was when they made us write about it. Writing longhand has always been a slow, difficult process for me. Thank goodness for typing.

Ignorance, thy names is Peppermint Patty!

“Be The Pack Leader” by Cesar Millan would be a good choice. Might put all that dog obedience training to good use!

It’s funny, over on Peanuts Begins today, Charlie is four and just starting to read words like “cat” and “rat”.

Read a book you’ve already read. I did that when i switched schools/states in HS – redid “The Three Musketeers” for the easy grade.

too many students too much of the time

I taught literature and composition for thirty years. Once, I assigned a small novel over spring break. Afterward, I regretted it because I realized that the kids deserve to spend vacation as they please. I apologized to those kids and never did it again during my career.

By the way, I also greatly reduced the amount of homework that I assigned. After all, kids do have lives out of the classroom.

Just read the shortest book you can find.

write a book!

Just ‘book’ a flight to North Korea.

If the teacher just said “a book,” and left it wide open like that, Pep should have no trouble finding very short books that can be knocked out in a single setting.

This goes to show that a lot of students hate required reading in school. And also why those children hate reading when they grow up to be adults

I would ask Santa for books, “Tom Swift, Jr.” and the “Hardy Boys”.

LOL :)

Back in 1962 I was a freshman in college and after Christmas break there was another week of classes and then final exams. During the break I read Dostoevsky”s “Crime and Punishment.” I also listened to my LP soundtrack album of “Ben-Hur” a lot, and in my mind I came to associate the novel and the music. A pretty strange connection to be sure.

Maybe have your dad read the book to you.