There have been two large-sized adaptations of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown issued recently, one which used a very flat-color classic-looking take on the images (a Hallmark exclusive), and one which used a lots-of-modeling Photoshop-heavy version (published by Running Press and distributed widely). This new Hallmark edition reprints the previous Hallmark edition, so the classic look it is – and I think that’s for the best. This new edition is smaller than the previous, and to achieve that they both shrink and trim the images (and, in the course of repagination, eliminate one.)

What’s new to this addition is a series of eight sound buttons down the right side, each with an icon on it. When you encounter that icon in the text, you push the button. Unlike many sound-button kids books, each button is used only once in the reading of the story. That does mean that many pages pass without any “interaction”, but it also means that you’re not faced with hearing the same danged sound over and over again – I suspect many of you who’ve been parents in this sound-button era will know just what I mean.

Each button has a sound effect, a bit of music, or a bit of dialogue. It should be noted that these are not sampled from the TV special, but appear to be newly recorded. I wonder if they simply don’t have a copy of the voices without the music backing.

Anyway, it’s a nice little book, and if you need to give someone a Halloween present… really? You need to give someone a Halloween present? I mean, isn’t giving a piece of candy enough? What has our world come to when we’re expected to give gifts on every holiday?! Besides, if they’re good, won’t the Great Pumpkin be bringing the person a gift anyway? So why do they need one from you?

The first Hallmark store I went to (and, well, staked out for a week) didn’t get them yet, but suggested that a corporate-owned Hallmarks (which around here are the ones in the malls) might have them. So I hit the one in the mall, and yes they had them – but there was no sign of the special deal (that being that this $14.95 book is just $9.99 if you purchase anything else). So I asked them about the deal, and they had to look it up… and then when I checked out, the deal didn’t ring up automatically, they had to enter it. The moral of this story is be sure to ask for the deal, you may not get it automatically. (And for those of you who don’t normally shop at Hallmark – yes, there are plenty of things that cost less than $5 and thus make the deal worthwhile even if you didn’t want anything else. I blew two dollars on some stickers for my daughter.)

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