Suddenly Silver: Celebrating 25 Years of For Better or For Worse »

Lynn Johnston lives in Corbeil, Ontario, Canada. She was the first woman to win the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year in 1985. In the summer of 2008, she was inducted into the "Giants of the North," the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame.

"(Characters) move into your home and into your head," Lynn Johnston writes about her For Better or For Worse creations. "They talk and can be heard in conversation-with you, with each other. . . . They allow you to be a part of their world inasmuch as you have asked them to be a part of yours."

That sentiment also applies to the millions of faithful For Better or For Worse fans who follow the popular family strip each day. Now Suddenly Silver celebrates that 25-year-old relationship between creator, characters, and readers.

Millions of readers share a daily relationship with Lynn Johnston and her cartoon family, the Pattersons. Suddenly Silver: Celebrating 25 Years of For Better or For Worse now allows these faithful friends-and new readers, too-to honor that long association through a one-of-a-kind collection of strips and Johnston's musings and comments about her real life and how it's reflected in one of the cartooning world's most loved and followed families.

Suddenly Silver is divided into three sections using cartoons from the strip's early, middle, and recent years. This insightful structure enables readers to revisit favorite earlier strips and to watch the development of storylines and the growth of characters over the years. Throughout it all, readers will find the same focus on everyday family life humorously portrayed through the good and the not-so-good days. All the cherished characters are present, including parents Elly and John; their children and grandchild; Grandpa Jim; and the dogs, Farley, Edgar, and Dixie.

Johnston's thoughts about them, their individual development, and their familial evolution makes Suddenly Silver particularly captivating. As Lynn describes her work, readers get to share in the Pattersons' rendition of real life, through the heartwarming and the humorous, the tragic and the triumphant. This book, like the cartoon it honors, will make readers smile while emphasizing what's important in life.

For Better or For Worse: What a run! What a celebration! What a future to look forward to!