The second (and not the last) of my new book editions of A Charlie Brown Christmas for this year is A Charlie Brown Christmas: A Hallmark Lighted Pop-up Book, available at better Hallmark stores now. Or soon. Mine didn’t have it on the shelf (yet?), but I ordered it online.

This one tells the tale via six pop-ups and six pages of text, so it’s a fairly simple version, (And lest anyone suggest it: no, it does not skip Linus’s quoting of Gospel. I’ve heard people claim repeatedly over the years that any shortening of the TV special, on air or in book form, would do away with the speech, because of a presumed conspiracy against Christianity. To the best of my knowledge, it has never happened.) The lighted pop-ups are nice, but the effect doesn’t have as much impact as one might hope. They never manage to use the light effect to light up the Christmas lights decorating Snoopy’s doghouse or the trees, but they do in one shot light up the stars in the sky… and one star that is somehow in Violet’s hair.

Still, it’s basically a pretty cool book… and, like always, I look forward to seeing what Hallmark does with next year’s adaptation!

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