Disney Anytime Stories Collection

 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.

Snow White - 1976

 uncredited

 I keep seeing these abridged Disney movies from the "Wonderful World of Reading" series.  I picked up this one because the Disney version is pretty much the same as the original story and it's only a little bit scary, right?

The uncredited art is not quite the same as the original, which I find very interesting..  But the story, sure is.  Which means that the awkwardness of the dwarfs names is more apparent in this shortened version.  We don't watch these movies, so it's not as charming and more confusing without the experience of having seen them act out their characters.

 That's only a little awkward, though.  You know what's really awkward?  Having to reword the part where the hunter is going to kill Snow White because your toddler doesn't understand death yet.

But most awkward of all...

"Mama, what's a princess?"

"Well...  A princess is a girl who lives in a big house, and her parents have lots of money, and she wears lots of big dresses...  and she waits around for a really rich man to take her away..."


Well.  What would YOU say?  This is why I don't read fairy tales that often.