It goes without saying: Peanuts at its silent best

by Charles Schultz
2005 / 160 pages
Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift

There seems something almost wrong with using a multitude of words to recommend a wordless book so let me hit just a few highlights and be done. This is Snoopy and the gang but with not a word spoken in this 50-year collection of “Peanuts pantomime strips.” The brilliance manifests in at least three different ways.

1. This is all ages. With no words to struggle over, my 6-year-old, still-learning-to-read daughter enjoyed this just as much as me. Might it be a gem for a reluctant reader?
2. This is unique. We’re all used to the regular puns that populate the newspaper comics page and know what to expect, but the sight gags here are humor of a whole different sort, and that curveball is sure fun.
3. This is art. Author Charles Schultz does a lot with a little – not just wordless, but his artistic style is also sparse, and it is amazing to see what he can communicate with just a few lines here and there.

I’ll only add that if you enjoy It Goes Without Saying, you might be interested in Garfield Left Speechless. It doesn’t have the same charm – Garfield is sometimes meanspirited in a way that Snoopy never is – but it has some of the same slapstick creativity. (For a twist, check out the website Garfield minus Garfield …although this one will be above kids’ heads.).