The Pull of Disney

Disney has been a part of Isaac's life since he was born.  Having family in Florida has meant that he has been going to one park or another since he was four months old.  We will probably never do the week-long-stay-at-a-resort-and-binge-on-the-parks family trip because we have gotten so used to day trips on which we can pick a park and a few things we really want to do because we know that we will probably be back within the next year or two.  That and I don't like Disney and its tourists enough to spend more than a day there.

Isaac has seen just about every good Disney movie that has come to the theaters since he was three, and a few of the not so good ones that I was willing to sit through.  He and Matt stay updated on changes at the parks and watch YouTube videos of old rides.  I am often thankful that we don't have a girl and are not caught up in the Princess craze, but we still buy into our share of the hype, in our own cynical way.

So, since Disney is such a presence in his life, it was only natural that he get excited about finding a biography about Walt Disney on the library shelf.  It is part of the Who Was/Who Is . . . ? biography series, the ones that depict the subject on the cover as a caricature -- kids are always asking why they have such big heads.  The series is very readable for middle elementary students, but I can't decide if the covers are drawing kids in or are just a distraction.

Either way, Isaac really enjoyed reading about Walt Disney's life and telling us about the time he brought a pet pig to school and other antics from his childhood.  He liked the biography enough that he was excited to find two others about Harry Houdini and Barack Obama.  He started with the Houdini one but was not as interested in it, probably because he lacked the connection with the subject.  He turned it in before finishing and then decided not to bother reading the Obama biography.

Of course, after Isaac read about Disney I was ready to go out and buy him the whole set thinking that we had hit upon another series he liked.  Not so much.  Instead, maybe I should hunt down some more Disney biographies.