There will be a Christmas in 2022!

book adaptations of A Charlie Brown Christmas

It’s the new year, and with a new year comes, of course a new Christmas, waiting just around the corner. Well, not around the near corner, but it’s somewhere around the far corner of the year, so we might as well be working toward it. Will this year bring us that great joy, a new book edition of A Charlie Brown Christmas? The answer, dear Virginia, is yes!

The folks at Running Press have constantly been coming out with little book editions of ACBC, usually as part of “kits” — you get a little plastic tree, you get a little book. Things like that. This year, it’s a kit with two ACBC jigsaw puzzles and a 32-page mini book edition of the special. And it’s available for preorder.

But that’s not all! the Running Press folks are also offering up a Peanuts advent calendar this year. The box uses art from Running Press’s previous book editions of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and promises music, ornaments, and other surprises. Might one of those surprises be a book? I honestly don’t know for sure…. but I do know that the details for this item at Amazon list it as a “Calendar ‏ : ‎ 72 pages”. I don’t know what counts as a page on an advent calendar, but certainly somewhere in there might be room for an adaptation of the special. Guess I’d better buy one and find out for sure!

 

Upcoming releases
A book I’d not expected to resurface

Back in 2011, Schulz’s granddaughter Dena Hodges issued the first two chapters of  a memoir called In the Shadow of the Family Dog. As I noted in my review at the time, the chapter and the description of the project made it clear that the focus was her relationship with …

Upcoming releases
A box of squares

This May, Fantagraphics is collecting the various small square Peanuts books they’ve published into a new box set, Peanuts All Year Round Mini Collection. This includes: A Valentine for Charlie Brown — Valentine’s Day and romance strips Batter-Up Charlie Brown! — baseball strips Waiting for the Great Pumpkin — Halloween …

Upcoming releases
Game Day returns

Back in 2020, Fantagraphics dropped Game Day, a boxed set of sports-themes Peanuts strip reprint paperbackss, as a Costco exclusive. Next June it’s coming back, this time in hardcover and available through the usual sources. Designed as a Father’s Day gift, it should be good for anyone who likes Peanuts …