Negative Positive
Title: Do we really want to discourage kids like this?
Review: I love Snoopy; I loved Charles Schulz's comics. But this book is disappointing in its negative message - it goes too far with the "Charlie Brown is a loser" message - Charlie Brown's friends all laugh at him when he insists it's good to keep trying (I agree with Charlie Brown - making a mistake or not winning shouldn't be a signal to just give up and never try anything ever again) and he enters the spelling bee. There are no guarantees that something attempted after a failure will end in a success, but Charlie Brown's failure in the spelling bee isn't funny - nor is the way his friends make fun of him - nor is the general message of his "loser" status: it's completely depressing and the book ends with no hope whatsoever for Charlie Brown to be anything other than a loser... I don't want kids to get the message that if they make a mistake, if they don't win, then they're doomed to failure and no friends for the rest of their lives, do you?
Is the review positive or negative? 