The teacher assigns Charlie Brown's class to do a book report on War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Peppermint Patty tells Charlie Brown about her New Year Party. He drops in on dance class and Peppermint Patty grabs him. He continues to struggle with the book while she keeps dropping hints about an invitation. He tells her about inviting the little red haired girl, Heather. He decides to put the invitation in her mail slot but his hand gets caught. At the party, Peppermint Patty wins musical chairs and continues to drop hints on the clueless Charlie Brown. He is left alone reading the book and falling asleep. Heather shows up and Charlie Brown miss her. In the end, he gets a D- for his book report. Even worst, they have to read Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.I just can't get over that Charlie Brown is reading War and Peace. It's pretty outlandish. I do like a jealous Peppermint Patty. She has a great awkward charm about her. They could have had more fun with her and Marcie in this one. The style is still as charming as ever.

You know that feeling you get when you watch Charlie Brown shows? This has that same wonderful feeling. Its that cute warm and fuzzy feeling that we always going.It starts out when the teacher springs an assignment to be done over the Christmas break, to read War and Peace and write a report. I remember when I was rather young and wasn't going to school for trimesters that my teachers would give me a little bit of homework but not very much so I could enjoy the break. I have a big feeling I was lucky. And threw all this, he gets distracted like us all of us when we were his age (not sure exactly what that age is) into not doing the report.There were times in this show that I actually didn't like Linus in this show. He got very preachy to a point that he was distracting to Charlie Brown. Other little things were a bit odd like Lucy holding a dance class for everyone to learn before the New Years party. I always wonder why they just didn't do the dancing they did in the Christmas special.I think one of the funniest moments they had was when Rerun was blowing up balloons with his brother and sister, but yet every time he did, they would turn out square. It actually had me stop and think how the hell that was even possible because the only character that I would normally see doing that would be Snoopy. When everyone else is pretty much normal for a day in the life of a child, Snoopy would be the one that stands out with all the strange things that happen.There really isn't much to talk about the artwork because it's the same as the others before, not really much changed. Same for the voices. The music though is actually fully to the times. They actually sing a bit and use really interesting swing music.

Well, New Year's Eve is coming up but poor Charlie Brown is stuck with having to read "War and Peace" (which is about a thousand pages) for his school book report. On top of that, Peppermint Patty invites him for her and Marcie's party while Linus tries to avoid Sally and her calling him her "Sweet Baboo". Oh, and there's a certain "Little Red Haired Girl" that Charlie's crazy about...Another funny and insightful "Peanuts" special with a wonderful script by creator Charles Schulz, direction by Sam Jaimes and usual helmer Bill Melendez, and a not bad musical score by Ed Bogas and Desiree Goyette who also wrote a couple of songs as well as sang on one of them. Too bad no one thought to put the late Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" in there but otherwise, this was another fine "Peanuts" holiday special.

This is a good show and I don't understand why it hasn't been put on DVD like the other Holiday Charlie Brown Shows. Poor Charlie Brown the worst he can think of always seems to happen to him, like when he gets his hand caught trying to deliver an invitation to the red hair girl.Then when she does show up for the party he's not there to bring in the New Year.It's funny how much time Peppermint Patty spends trying to get Chuck to notice her.Great Show!