Books

Book Review: “The Art of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse” by Jessica Ward Celebrates 90 Years of Mickey

Denise

Hi everyone!

We received The Art of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse by Jessica Ward to review, it released in September so is available to order now. With the 90th birthday of Mickey Mouse this year (and Minnie), we are seeing a lot more focus on him right now. I’m not sure The Art of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse would be as much for a general Disney fan as it would be for a Mickey Mouse specific fan and also a Disney book completist. Here is my review.

 

The Art of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse is a nicely presented book, clocking in at almost 200 pages and it has a nice look and feel to it. The dust cover and the actual book cover are the same print. There are essentially just a couple of sections to the book, which is more art book than anything. There is a quick filmography, which then leads into Mickey’s Milestones. The milestones span not only movies like Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie, but merchandise, comics, the Mickey Mouse watch, Disneyland and more. These milestones are short, but there are some fun pictures within that I have not seen before. Remember Mickey’s Birthdayland at the Magic Kingdom? I was there for it, and the book touches on it as well as the Earffel Tower. All of these receive about a paragraph in large print type. This is not a wordy book. For some reason, Chef Mickey’s at Walt Disney World gets two full pages with photos while the Disneyland paragraph receives 7 lines along with a couple of interesting pictures. The level of importance of what is talked about isn’t really equal as far as how much is written.
 
The bulk of The Art of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse is Mickey’s Gallery, and includes artwork on each page. Most of the artwork is in the digital medium but there is some other artwork here as well. If you like Mickey Mouse and you like a lot of pictures of Mickey Mouse, this is a good book to buy. The cover price is $40 but the price can be a lot less online and I think it is a nice book for the pricing I’ve seen. Don’t buy it expecting to learn a lot of history of Mickey Mouse, there is some here but it’s not in any way an exhaustive reference book. There is some reference, some history, and a lot of artwork along with some nice photos. There is a foldout also with 90 small photos of different Mickey moments that is a nice bonus in the book. Actually, I’d have liked to see these incorporated into full size pages.
 
According to Disney Editions, The Art of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse is a “celebration of the true original icon, spanning the ninety years that Mickey Mouse has been entertaining audiences with heartfelt performances and humorous antics”. Jessica Ward has been an editor for Disney Publishing for nine years and has contributed to more than eighty books.
 
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