Having talked about the two book adaptations of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown that I had not expected to buy when I went to my local Hallmark store, what about the one that I did expect to buy?

I quickly thought that I did not have to buy it. After all, I don’t feel the need to buy different editions of the same book unless they have genuinely different content… except for A Charlie Brown Christmas. I don’t need that madness spreading to other corners of my collection. And I recognized the Paige Braddock art that’s used on this adaptation, from an edition that was first published by Hallmark back in 2009.

But… I would’ve been wrong to skip buying this. Because yes, it uses Paige Braddock art from that earlier adaptation, but it is not the same adaptation! They’ve totally replaced the text (the writer of the new version is not given a clear credit) and scaled back on the art. While the 2009 version was a 48 page book, the new version is a mere 24, so big chunks of art and story are gone. In some way, it’s done in complement to the Snoopy the Flying Ace book that I talked about yesterday; where that book focus on Snoopy’s adventures in the special, this all but eliminates them. He isn’t mentioned in the story until it’s time for him to arise in the pumpkin patch (although he is seen in the background of one story image.)

The story cuts are at times clunky. Most notably, there is Lucy declaring that it’s time to bob for apples, and there’s a drawing showing Charlie Brown looking disgusted at that… but the actual thing he is reacting to, and the whole point of having a bobbing-for-apples scene, is gone. There is no Snoopy in the apple bucket.

However, I do see this 50th anniversary edition as being in one a way a proper tribute to the history of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. This edited-down version brings to mind all the ever-more-edited-down versions of the TV special that aired for decades, as the special was trimmed to accommodate more ad time in the half hour.

The history of this edition is even richer than you might think, because the text from that 2009 version was not original; it reused the text (but not the pictures) from a 2001 adaptation published by Little Simon.

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