Following up on yesterday’s post, I’m now finishing up the unwrapping of the new Hallmark book adaptation of A Charlie Brown Christmas and getting down to its chewy nougat center, the book itself. Peeling off the shrinkwrap, we find two copies of a book that looks a lot like 2011’s Recordable Storybook version… and with good reason. This book is a copy of that adaptation, without the recordable sound features.

Well, basically, kinda.

The text has been given, if not a total rewrite, then at least a heavy copy edit. For example, the opening sentence of the old version was “Christmastime was here – the time when snowflakes fell softly and the sounds of carols rang through the air” while the new one is “Christmastime had arrived – a time when snow fell softly and carols rang sweetly in the air.” You know, the kind of rewriting that you do when you’re trying to pretend that your report of Harriet Tubman wasn’t just copied from the encyclopedia.

And the art is mostly the same, but a few of the images have been reworked. And by dumping that whole “record your own audio” thing and the electronics and thick pages that come with it, they’ve cut the cover price to a third, to $9.95 for a copy. Or, in my case, $9.95 for two copies. Or… well, frankly my suspicion is that they’ll be using this as part of some sort of giveaway once the Christmas shopping season begins in earnest, something along the lines of “buy three cards, get the book for free” or somesuch. It just feels like this is being priced as it is – not high, but a little high for it – so that it seems like a good giveaway. Time will tell. But unless you’re a crazed collector who fears that armageddon could come tomorrow, and it would be a major disappointment if the world ended while there was one edition of  A Charlie Brown Christmas that was missing on your shelf dedicated to just such books, then you may be wise to wait a few weeks before purchasing this.

(And, if anyone is wondering: no, I’m not returning the extra copy. This isn’t out of any lack of concern for doing the right thing, but out of the recognition that processing the return would cost Hallmark more than what they paid to print the extra copy. My returning the book would not be to their benefit.)

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