Sunday Symphony: Trivia, Trips, and God

I’m not alone.

Other sites run Disney book reviews, too. They don’t spe­cial­ize in them, like we do here, but every so often, they toss one up.

In this edi­tion of the Sunday Symphony, we’ll once again see what’s been tossed up, and whether it’s in tune.

The Disneyland Encyclopedia

George Taylor, writ­ing for MiceChat, reviews the “updated sec­ond edi­tion” of Chris Strodder’s The Disneyland Encyclopedia, a print book that pur­ports to be the “Unofficial, Unauthorized, and Unprecedented History of Every Land, Attraction, Restaurant, Shop, and Major Event in the Original Magic Kingdom”. Okay, then!

George’s review con­sists mostly of scanned snip­pets from the book: the first snip­pet fea­tures Rolly Crump’s entry, fol­lowed by a snip­pet about Restrooms — kinda catty there, George. But the scans are effec­tive in con­vey­ing the depth and value of Strodder’s book. George admits that his review “might seem a lit­tle too glow­ing” in light of chal­lenges thrown up by other review­ers over what Strodder includes — and what he doesn’t include — in the book, but those are fan­boy squab­bles. Average read­ers (myself included) won’t notice or care. I’m with George on this one.

Read Review | View Book Cover

Sunrise Over Disney

Sam Gennawey of SamLand reviews Bert’s Sunrise Over Disney, a print book with ele­ments of fic­tion, his­tory, the­ol­ogy, and phi­los­o­phy. (Bert? Yes, Bert. That’s what the author — whose real name is L.N. Smith — put on the cover.) As Gennawey describes it, the book fea­tures a trip to Disney World by a fam­ily from the Midwest who decide that the best way to pre­pare for said trip is to sub­ject them­selves to a self-designed crash course in Disney his­tory, cul­ture, and trivia. An inter­est­ing premise, and one which Sam thinks “Bert” has pulled off quite well.

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The Vault of Walt

Blake Taylor of Blake Online reviews Jim Korkis’s clas­sic The Vault of Walt, a book pub­lished way back in 2010 but still gar­ner­ing acco­lades today. Taylor’s review is detailed and bal­anced. He lauds the book for its “effi­cient orga­ni­za­tion”, but then cas­ti­gates its con­tent as “jumpy”, with an “at times dry tone”. (Aren’t “effi­cient orga­ni­za­tion” and “jumpy” mutu­ally exclu­sive descrip­tors?) Although I dis­agree with most of Taylor’s crit­i­cisms of the book, I do appre­ci­ate his can­dor and wish more Disney book review­ers would dish the sour with the sweet.

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A Christian Guide to Walt Disney World Resort

Kristin Scroggin of Tips from the Disney Diva reviews Jeff Chaves’s A Christian Guide to Walt Disney World, a Kindle book that’ll set you back a rather un–Christian price of $9.99 (don’t get me started on why it’s wrong to price ebooks as if they were print books). Kristin’s review is short. At first, I thought it unhelp­ful, but then I real­ized that if you’re a seri­ous, prac­tic­ing Christian, there’s really not much to say about this book. You’ll buy it because you’re a seri­ous, prac­tic­ing Christian; or you won’t.

I’m not a seri­ous, prac­tic­ing Christian. But Kristin’s descrip­tion of the book as “a series of short daily devo­tions that ‘move along with you’ through­out the park” piques my inter­est. And the book’s slo­gan is clever: “Don’t Forget to Pack Your Faith”. So I bought Chaves’s book and will review it soon from the per­spec­tive of a Christian “by bap­tism only”.

Read Review | View Book Cover

Shut ‘er down, Mickey, before them light­nin’ bolts get any closer…