From Booklist
To many kids, Walt Disney is a company, not a man. This short title in the First Biographies series introduces the groundbreaking animator with breezy efficiency. It begins with a slight confusion in tense: Walt Disney is a famous artist and businessman. This miracle resurrection aside, the facts are compiled in good faith: Disney became interested in drawing at a young age and after WWI moved to Los Angeles to create cartoons with his brother Roy. Then it's off to the races—Steamboat Willie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the advent of the theme park. Every other page features captioned photos, and although the press shots are unexceptional, the candids (including one of Disney squatting in the hay to sketch fawns) are revealing. Though the details that dim Disney's legacy (his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, his company's infamous policing of trademark) are absent, we do get a glimpse of his personal life with some text and photos of his wife and kids. There's plenty here to keep funneling readers toward the next gift shop. Grades 2-4. --Daniel Kraus
