You're My Hero, Charlie Brown

First Edition. The pages are clear and readable. You're My Hero, Charlie Brown! (made up of selected cartoons from Peanuts Every Sunday Vol. 2) is a really good collection of fairly early Peanuts comics, each of them of the longer Sunday variety. Sally is basically just a toddler in these cartoons (Linus even teaches her how to hold a blanket and suck her thumb), Snoopy is constantly trying to take Linus' blanket away from him, and Lucy is constantly asserting her dominance over Linus. Despite the title, you won't find a lot of good days in the life of Charlie Brown in this collection. He can never get his kite up in the air, he's ridiculed as wishy-washy, and he always feels as if no one really likes him. I think there's actually more of Linus than any other character in this book, though (which is fine with me because Linus was always the character I could identify with the most). Not only do you get to see his struggles to remember his part in the Christmas program, you also get to witness his short-lived boxing career, which was less than spectacular thanks to Snoopy and Lucy, who square off against one another at one point in a real marquee matchup. Snoopy, in case you're wondering, fought with one glove strapped around his snout.