10 books like You need help, Charlie Brown

While I sometimes find Dickens' characters overdrawn and his endings too tidily wrapped in his other novels, I love these qualities in Great Expectations and how the specific setting in which we meet a character shapes our (and Pip’s) assumptions. The Gothic decadence of Miss Havisham's wedding feast and the monstrous spectre of Magwitch appearing among the graves are fabulous scenes for this. But what I like most is how Pip changes in response to the manipulations and ambitions of the supporting cast; how he's shaken out of impoverished innocence into a world of expectations, and his trajectory as a flawed character into conceit and arrogance, until he finally comes good—battered and bruised, but ultimately redeemed.

I really admire Raymond Briggs’ work; he’s a wonderful storyteller and a fantastic artist with a great eye for colour. Ethel & Ernest is a beautiful book. The strip-cartoon format works well and makes for an intense reading experience. Whilst this book has lots of humour and light, it also features some dark topics such as the Second World War, mental illness, and bereavement. It is generally considered unsuitable for children under the age of twelve. It’s a charming love story and a vivid social record. I find it heartbreaking at times. It becomes even more touching when you remember that it is based on Briggs’ own family.

Tove Jansson was not only a wonderful writer, but also a superb illustrator. In this collection of stories, I particularly love "The Hemulen who loved Silence." Even now, I go back to this story to reconnect with the soulful main character who longs for solitude. It isn’t that he doesn’t like others, but he needs to be by himself sometimes, and more than the other hemulens around him. It is the story of an introvert, but not a loner. I can relate to the Hemulen! Tove Jansson stories are full of humour, insight, and thought-provoking ideas. They can also be a little bit scary. Like all the best children’s books, the Moomin books have hidden layers, providing a stimulating read for both adults and children. 

The Railway Children is a rich family saga set in 1905 told from the perspective of the children, Bobbie, Phyllis, and Peter. They live a happy, comfortable life until their father is suddenly taken away by two police officers. The family is forced to move away and adapt to living in the countryside on a much-reduced income. The separation from their father is keenly felt by the children, whilst their mother hides her own distress to protect them. 

We eventually realise that an injustice has occurred, but how can the children hope to reunite with their father? The Railway might provide an answer. Edith Nesbit has created a warm and engaging novel where acts of kindness, sometimes misguided, are integral to the storytelling.

I’m a huge film fan. When I was younger, I didn’t read many books, but I love the stories in films and comics. The recent Marvel films have made me feel like a youngster again and I’ve loved how they have all become interconnected. I would have thoroughly enjoyed flicking through this encyclopedia when I was a child. It’s a book that you can open at any page and look through. You could even read it backward if you like! Full of dynamic pictures of all the Marvel characters with descriptions and facts. All in bite-sized chunks and it hardly feels like you are reading at all.

Warning: This book will make you build a new bookshelf. Like other oversized offerings from Peter Maresca’s Sunday Press Publishing, you need a tape measure, not a ruler, to determine its dimensions. This means that you can read this startling collection of strips from 1895 to 1915 in the grand size in which they first appeared in early newspapers, back when the colors and characters screamed off the page, reflecting and refracting the frenetic dawn of a new century. These old newspaper comics pages are where Americans first learned to laugh together. Society is Nix can be difficult to find but is well worth the effort.

Now c’mon, was this guy Winsor fer-real? This stuff is off the charts other-realm, lucid sleeping material. His work was done as comic strips, but can now be found in book form in a variety of volumes. It may be the century between us, but these images and text make me feel a little tilted, off-center, and in the best way possible.

Larry Tye brings a lifelong fan’s passion and a renowned journalist’s research skills to the ultimate biography of the Man of Steel. It’s comprehensive and full of amazing stories and facts that weren’t known before, but more impressively it’s entertaining to read, from start to finish. It’s a great book for anyone interested in Americana, pop culture, or Superman.

Who doesn’t like Calvin and Hobbes, a fun comic strip about a silly first grader and his sidekick best buddy tiger? Calvin and Hobbes is heartwarming, mischievous, and speaks to every kid with their imagination and sense of adventure. Plus, the reason why I put it on this list: it’s easy to read. The engaging, four-panel comic strips are a digestible size for someone struggling with word comprehension. Not only is Calvin a lovable and relatable character with his little adventures being dynamic, action-packed, and hilarious, it’s proven to engage any reluctant reader. I can attest as Calvin and Hobbes was one of the very few books I voluntarily read as a kid – and I loved it. 

I wrote my undergrad thesis on the migration of visual tropes from traditional Japanese theatre (Noh, Bunraku, and Kabuki) into modern art forms (Manga, Anime, Supakabuki/Anime Musicals), which was a rigorous exercise because I couldn’t just compare the tropes—I had to spend hours explaining them to my advisor. It was a fascinating (sometimes exasperating) lesson in learning to read one visual vocabulary, only to have to explain it to someone else in terms that they understood using another.

This blurred-xerox-translation-of-a-translation exercise is the central theme of Mangaman, where a Shojou-esque protagonist falls from a fantastical manga world into a comic. Visual conventions clash, where he walks the wrong way across panels, and where his speed lines accidentally stab people in the school hallway.