I’ve spoken here before about “ghost books”, titles that were once entered into some publisher’s or distributor’s list but never really existed, never really will exist, but due to various computer processes keep getting relisted as coming some time in the future. What we have today is a listing for a book which has strong signs of being a ghost book, but which has never popped up on my radar before.

Baby Snoopy, the infantilized version of comicdom’s favorite beagle, had his fans and his detractors, but they started phasing him out of the licensing a fair while back. I think you can still find some decorations for nurseries bearing his image, but the last new books featuring him were published about 7 years ago, when Little Simon stopped publishing new Peanuts books.

But now I’m finding listings for Snoopy’s New Home, a Baby Snoopy book published by Little Simon. The UK Amazon site says that it’s coming out next June. The US site? They say it’s coming out in August, 2030! I guess that eighteen years from now, we’ll know the truth. I think I’ll keep this one off of the list of upcoming Peanuts books, just to be safe.

(Hey, you know what they’ll call Baby Snoopy eighteen years in the future? Adult Snoopy!)

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