WALT DISNEY'S CHILDREN'S CLASSICS 1937-1953

376 pages with ten complete adventures. Travel to imagined lands through mid-century illustrations by pioneering Disney artists such as the now-legendary Mary Blair, John Hench, Tom Oreh, Al Dempster, Campbell Grant, Dick Kelsey, Mel Shaw, and Retta Scott Worcester. This anthology of stories collects the earliest Disney film adaptations for the Golden Books series, which began in 1943. Disney assigned their finest animators to these and sales helped them through hard times during and after WWII. The fine work on these stories set the style for future animators. This collects Dumbo, Pinocchio. Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Once Upon a Wintertime, Snow White, Peter and the Wolf, The Adventures of Mr. Toad, Peter Pan and Cinderella. The long, well-illustrated introduction puts these all into context. It includes original art from several covers, pictures and bios of all the animators, some relatively unknown, who were given these plum assignments. The Golden Book series actually may have saved the Disney studio during some hard times; with the release of Cinderella, they finally got back on track with the public after several years of unsuccessful releases! A fascinating story in itself. Highly detailed bios of each artist, with more samples of their artwork.