Written by Lisa Ann Marsoli
This volume is from 1996. It's about as bad as you can imagine it being, which means that for some children I guess it's passably okay. It has pictures in it, which is all they're really after in a Disney book.
The art here is spot on. No weird modernization of older classics. They tried to keep it very accurate, so that's nice. The writing probably suffers from too many editors.
The stories only make sense if you've seen the movies. There is little or no introduction of new characters and little backstory. It's basically a crazy compilation of Disney Fanfiction written for superfans. My daughter has never seen any of these shows, so nothing in this book makes any sense to her. The fact that the vocabulary is way beyond that of a 5 year old (my husband balked at the use of the word "pachyderm") only makes things more confusing. Normally I'm all for varied vocabulary, but if I have to spend twice as long coming up with an explanation for the events and characters in the book than I would spend just reading what's on the page, it's not a very good book for kids.
It bothered me, too, that some of the events in these stories conflict with elements of their own universes. I'm really not a Disney fan, and I was pretty annoyed, so I'm pretty sure a real hardcore superfan would burn up. Or maybe a REAL superfan would be able to justify all the deviation.
Anyway, the book cost 25¢. I'll probably tear out all of the full page glossies and do a craft with them or something.
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