Charles schulz biography for children

Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz
By Beverly Gherman
Chronicle Books
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-8118-6790-0
Ages 8 and up
On shelves now.

Sitting in the biography section of my children’s room are crisp, new, clean, pristine biographies of all sorts of people. Saints and sailors, presidents and queens, you name it. We got `em. But roundabout the “sch” side of things lies an old autobiography circa 1980. It’s called Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me and All the Other Peanuts Characters, by Charles M. Schulz with R. Smith Kiliper. I think that back in the day my library had tons of copies of this title in all the library branches, but due to the sheer amount of use that number has dwindled down to a measly two copies. The worst part is that no matter how beat up, ragged, and torn they become we can’t get rid of them either! This is the only Charles Schulz biography for kids out there and by gum we’re going to keep it until it falls apart . . . or until we see something better. Enter Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz. Author Beverly Gherman has, probably unbeknownst to her, answered my prayers. A biography that is not only necessary and desirable but also beautifully designed and fun to read, kids who have never even heard of Peanuts (and they exist) will be inclined to read about this shy Minnesota boy who went on to become a war hero and America’s most successful comic strip artist.

Born November 26, 1922, Charles Monroe Schulz grew up a shy, bespectacled boy when a penchant for drawing. His nickname “Sparky” turned out to be almost portentous, coming as it did from a horse in the comic strip Barney Google. After graduating from art school he served in the army with distinction. After that he started drawing cartoons and one in particular, a comic strip with a title he never really liked, took off. Sparky is the story o

On the morning of Sunday, February 13, 2000, newspaper readers opened their comic pages as they had for nearly fifty years to read the latest adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts Gang.  This Sunday was different, though; mere hours before newspapers hit doorsteps with the final original Peanuts comic strip, its creator Charles M. Schulz, who once described his life as being “one of rejection,” passed away peacefully in his sleep the night before, succumbing to complications from colon cancer.  It was a poetic ending to the life of a devoted cartoonist who, from his earliest memories, knew that all he wanted to do was “draw funny pictures.”

The poetry of Schulz’s life began two days after he was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 26, 1922, when an uncle nicknamed him “Sparky” after the horse Spark Plug from the Barney Google comic strip.  Sparky’s father, Carl, was of German heritage and his mother, Dena, came from a large Norwegian family; the family made their home in St. Paul, where Carl worked as a barber.  Throughout his youth, father and son shared a Sunday morning ritual reading the funnies; Sparky was fascinated with strips like Skippy, Mickey Mouse, and Popeye.  In his deepest desires, he always knew he wanted to be a cartoonist, and seeing the 1937 publication of his drawing of Spike, the family dog, in the nationally-syndicated Ripley’s Believe it or Not newspaper feature was a proud moment in the young teen’s life.  He took his artistic studies to a new level when, as a senior in high school and with the encouragement of his mother, he completed a correspondence cartoon course with the Federal School of Applied Cartooning (now Art Instruction Schools).

As Schulz continued to study and hone his artistic style from the late 1920s through the 1940s, the genre of comic art experienced a great shift.  The full-page comics of the 1920s and 30s afforded artists the space to re

Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000), nicknamed Sparky, was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Peanuts (which featured the characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, among others). He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists of all time, cited as a major influence by many later cartoonists, including Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson.

Career

Schulz's first group of regular cartoons, a weekly series of one-panel jokes entitled Li'l Folks, was published from June 1947 to January 1950 in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, with Schulz usually doing four one-panel drawings per issue. It was in Li'l Folks that Schulz first used the name Charlie Brown for a character, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys as well as one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In May 1948, Schulz sold his first one-panel drawing to The Saturday Evening Post; within the next two years, a total of 17 untitled drawings by Schulz were published in the Post, simultaneously with his work for St. Paul Pioneer Press. Around the same time, he tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association; Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January 1950.

Peanuts

Main article: Peanuts

At its height, Peanuts was published daily in 2,600 papers in 75 countries, in 21 languages. Over the nearly 50 years that Peanuts was published, Schulz drew nearly 18,000 strips. The strips themselves, plus merchandise and product endorsements, produced revenues of more than $1 billion per year, with Schulz earning an estimated $30 million to $40 million annually. During the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997 to celebrate his 75th birth

American cartoonist (1922–2000)

For other people with similar names, see Charles Schultz.

Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (SHUULTS; November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts which features his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists in history, and cited by many cartoonists as a major influence, including Jim Davis, Murray Ball, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, and Dav Pilkey.

"Peanuts pretty much defines the modern comic strip", said Bill Watterson, "so even now it's hard to see it with fresh eyes. The clean, minimalist drawings, the sarcastic humor, the unflinching emotional honesty, the inner thoughts of a household pet, the serious treatment of children, the wild fantasies, the merchandising on an enormous scale – in countless ways, Schulz blazed the wide trail that most every cartoonist since has tried to follow."

Early life and education

Charles Monroe Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 26, 1922, and grew up in Saint Paul. He was the only child of Carl Fred Schulz and Dena Halverson, and was of German and Norwegian descent. His uncle called him "Sparky" after the horse Spark Plug in Billy DeBeck's comic strip Barney Google, which Schulz