It’s the Peak of the Holiday Season

Animated Peanuts

It is my favorite time of the Christmas season, which long time readers will know means just one thing: the arrival of a new book adaptation of A Charlie Brown Christmas! Or… is it an adaptation.

The publication in question is a new boxed set, called the A Charlie Brown Christmas Wooden Collectible Set.

Inside this box are a collection of little flat wooden pieces with images of Peanuts characters or relevant trees, a two-side backdrop for staging dioramas, and… a book!

The book is titled Peanuts: A Charlie Brown Christmas: A Collection of Favorite Moments. So it’s a collection of “moments”, of quotes from the show and pictures from… well, not actually from the show, but from the frequently-used Tom Brannon artwork adapting the show. 

So, this is certainly adapted from the TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas, but does it count as an adaptation of that special. Well, in my job as The Nation’s Official A Charlie Brown Christmas Adaptation Identification Laureate Emeritus, I face it with some questions: are the art and quotes in the order in which they appear in the show? Approximately yes. If you read it in the order presented, does it make up a story? Yes, a rough one, but it is followable. Is that story a version of a story found in the TV special? Yup. So my official judgment is that this is indeed an adaptation of the special.

Which is a joy and a burden, because now I have to go update my online A Charlie Brown Christmas database. This may take me a day or so, folks!

New releases
A pop-up shows up

Here Comes Charlie Brown!: A Peanuts Pop-up, Gene Kannenberg, Jr.’s adaptation of the very first Peanuts strip, is not the first Peanuts book to reprint only a single strip. There was at least one board book that did much the same thing. However, that board book was, at heart, a …

Classic finds
English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart

The next book in my Amazon Japan shipment falls into the adorable category of “Peanuts used to explain American culture”. English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart with Snoopy by Nobu Yamada falls into that category. It also falls into the category of “books which are meant to be destroyed”, as each …

New releases
Look! A mook!

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