Hallmark has dipped its toe into the Peanuts cloth book market with Snoopy Says “Good Night”, an edge-of-your-seat thriller in which Snoopy says good night to Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus, Lucy, and (SPOILER WARNING) you. And they really pump up that last one, because on the left of the spread is Snoopy (and Woodstock) there saying goodnight, but the right-hand page is actually mostly a mirror, so that when he says goodnight to you, you know who you are!

Well, kinda.

You see, this isn’t a hard mirror; that wouldn’t be appropriate to a cloth book. It’s more of a cardboard item that’s been stitched in, and the stitching warps the mirror a bit. This turns it into more of a funhouse mirror, with the specific effect of making your head look far more rectangular than it actually is. This mirror could turn Charlie Brown himself into an actual blockhead.

I have no idea what effect this will have on the 6 month old who is in the cloth book target readership (well, read-toship.) Will they recognize themselves without reservation, or be amused by the warping, or simply be scared by the point-headed being whom they see?

The book also has a surprising number of dangly bits that don’t work toward the central goal of a cloth book. There are:

1. A plastic fastener on the spine holding a cardboard “Hallmark Created / Peanuts Approved” tag.
2. A baby pin on the spine holding on a cloth ribbon that holds the cardboard tag announcing what the product is, its price, and its copyright information (Copyright 2021 Peanuts Worldwide LLC), manufacturing information, and the instruction to “carefully remove all tags and fasteners before giving to a child.”
3.   A cloth tag attached to the last page announcing that this is a Peanuts product from Hallmark Marketing Company LLC, and that it is copyright Peanuts Worldwide LLC
4. A cloth tag attached to the last page again announcing that it is copyright Peanuts Worldwide LLC, as well as manufacturing information,
5. Another cloth tag attached to the last page announcing manufacturing information in both English and French.

Some deconstruction required.

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