They say bad luck comes in three, but so do book adaptations of A Charlie Brown Christmas, at least this year, and that isn’t a bad thing at all. Three different new editions arrived here at AAUGH Blog Central on the same day, which was great! I mean, imagine if every day was like that? We’d have over 1000 different editions per year. And wouldn’t that make the world a better place? (No. I mean, I’d never keep up, you guys would quickly become tired of the blog entries looking the same, forests would be flattened in this one mad pursuit. As much as I hate to say it, publishing industry, triple-ACBC days should remain few and far between.)

None of these are signficanly new adaptations. They all use existing art. The A Charlie Brown Christmas Deluxe Edition with Slipcase (Peanuts) (as it’s called on Amazon) is a reprint of the 2017 Deluxe Edition, with the big difference being that the book now as a slipcase. The slipcase has the words 60th Anniversary Edition at the top, which makes me extra happy, because it means if they decide to reprint this volume next year, they’ll reprint it without that part, and thus create a new edition for me to keep track of! Other than that the book has the same textured cover, the same foil stamping… really, if you want to tell the books themselves apart, flip to the back cover; the old edition had a bar code, the new edition doesn’t, because the bar code is on the slipcase.

Of course, you could also check inside the back cover, where the new edition has some wrapping paper that you can, I presume, use to wrap the book to give as a gift… but then you have to take off the shrinkwrap! Decisions, decisions.

Then there’s a big wide board book — 11 inches wide when closed, 22 stiff inches when opened, so it’s too big for your baby to pick up and stick in their mouth; you’ll have to shove it in for them. This is a reuse of a 2105 adaptation.

The third version is also a board book based on that same 2015 adaptation, although to fit a smaller size, there is text reduction and a lot of art trimming. It’s in their “Super Chubby” format, which means that the covers are padded with polyurethane foam (“all new material”, we are assured, even though the book itself is largely a reprint.) This stands out to me above all other A Charlie Brown Christmas adaptation books in one way: If you want to throw a book adaptation of A Charlie Brown Christmas at someone, this is the one that you want. It is not so big that it will be unwieldy; indeed, it can be held quite comfortably by the typical adult hand; it is also not so small or light that it will flutter aware from air resistance. Indeed, its board-based heft will give it sufficient impact that you are sure that you will get the attention of whomever you throw it at.

At first, I thought that Amazon wasn’t carrying this smaller version; I actually ordered it from Barnes & Noble. Turns out it was just carefully hidden on the Amazon website. Amazon is not good at all these various editions under the same name, and they associate the Kindle version of this one with the print version of the larger board book, and vice versa.

Are these all the new editions for the year? They’re the only ones I know about… but there is frequently one that makes itself known later in the year (often a new Hallmark edition.) I shall keep one eye open and an ear to the ground and my fingers crossed, but then I have strange ways of having fun.

Note: I have not yet added these to my guide to book adaptations of A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s an awkward effort, and I will do it when I’m more rested.

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