A novel writing credit

The Amazon listing for the novelization of The Peanuts Movie has been updated, so it now lists the authors as To Be Announced and Charles M. Schulz.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ms. Announced’s work, well, I haven’t read much of it before myself, but she must be good, she has a lot of work in the pipeline. For example, there’s Untitled Picture Book, which Simon & Schuster will be releasing for the Kindle on December 31, 2030.

Movie novelizations are an interesting challenge – I’ve got some friends who have written them, and always wanted to take a stab at them myself. For adult novelizations, the big challenge is that you really have to flesh the film out a lot, the content of a typical film is more of a novelette than a novel. Sometimes, you can restore scenes that were edited out of the script, sometimes you just build new stuff, tease minor moments into subplots, and so forth. Less of that would be needed with a novelization for kids like this one, of course, due to its shorter length. However, capturing Peanuts in prose has always been a tricky matter, both in terms of tone and capturing moments of visual humor in text… particularly when facing animation focused on Snoopy, extended dialogue-free fantasy sequences. I hope that Ms. Announced is up to the task!

Upcoming releases
Peanuts books to buy, and a free one

We’ve got a few more books listed as coming up later this year. There’s no surprise that we’re getting the paperback edition of The Complete Peanuts 1993-1994, and with it, the box set of 1991-1994. After all, these have been coming out like clockwork, and 2025 should bring us the …

Upcoming releases
Mostly recycled Peanuts books

There are some new Peanuts titles showing up in the pipeline. I don’t have covers yet, but the books are simple to explain. Welcome Home, Franklin! adopts the new TV special that will hit Apple TV+ on the 16th. Here’s to You Charlie Brown and You’re the Greatest, Charlie Brown …

Upcoming releases
Upcoming collections

Coming in May is Five Funny Snoopy and Charlie Brown Stories!, a compilation of the previously-released kids storybooks Let’s Go to the Library!; Time for School, Charlie Brown; Snoopy and Woodstock; Snoopy, First Beagle on the Moon!; and Make a Trade, Charlie Brown! We now have a cover for the …