Park related books to read before our trip?

[ExcitedMama]

I was thinking about how best to prepare my children for the park experience. My DD was only 2 last time and she will just turn 5 before we go so there are a lot of characters I need to prepare her for. I know that will be a lot of movies she needs to see outside of her preferred Princess and Tinkerbell selection. I think my 7.5 year old son should know most characters. He loved Cars and Nemo when he was young and he's seen The Incredibles. He knows Mickey and that crew and of course Pooh. I've read him Peter Pan and Mary Poppins. I'm planning on reading Alice in Wonderland to them. We are going to have about 5 days in the park so I know it will be more fun if they know who the characters are. Are there any other books that I'm missing that would add to the experience? Real books, not just those cartoon character tie ins. We have plenty of the picture books with the characters in those anthologies and lots of different versions of the Princesses, both Disney and others. I was hoping there might be one I've missed but I can't think what it is. Thank you!

 

[are you ready]

https://www.amazon.ca/Junior-Encycl...500052018&sr=1-1&keywords=disney+encyclopedia

We bought these to bring and get signed, which didn't really happen my kids were too young to care about signatures at the time. However they loved the book and learned many new characters I will probably pick up one of the other versions before our next trip.

 

[are you ready]

https://www.amazon.ca/Disney-Prince...052296&sr=1-1&keywords=disney+princess+recipe

Oh we did also buy this one, which we did get signed. We had a meal at Ariel's Grotto and got all the princess we saw there to sign it, Plus some of the recipes are pretty decent.

 

[ChloroformSdxn]

The Little Man of Disneyland! It's a Golden Book, but you can find his house.

 

[BriannaRuth]

The Little Man of Disneyland! It's a Golden Book, but you can find his house.

Yes, this!

 

[MerMazing]

I love these books... So much info, but kid friendly with pictures, games and even a few pages in the back for autographs

https://www.amazon.com/Going-Disneyland-Guide-Kids-Heart/dp/0991295439
https://www.amazon.com/Going-Disney-California-Adventure-Guide/dp/0991295455

 

[Abbey1]

Wind in the Willows! Such a great children's book, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is based off of one of the stories.

 

[2boysmommy]

Who Was Walt Disney is a great one. Not about characters but more the how and why of the park. Especially for your 7 year old.

 

[etwizzle]

The Little Man of Disneyland! It's a Golden Book, but you can find his house.

Ditto on this!

 

[etwizzle]

Also, I don't have any specific suggestions but maybe books that expose them to some of the more classic parts of dl like toad and frog, Tom Sawyer and the sword in the Stone.

 

[Delilah1310]

Finding story books to read with your kiddo is a great idea.
Did anyone mention The Jungle Book? Maybe not the original classic, but I imagine there may be an age-apporpriate version.
And my son LOVED the Robin Hood cartoon story book and flipped out when we saw the sheriff in the Halloween parade!

I will say that on our first trip, I wasn't sure how my kid would react to characters he didn't know, but he loved some of them even without knowing their names, stories or anything about them. It was more like ... "oh, look at that silly bear! Let's go meet him!"
We had to ask someone about who Meeko was!

 

[ChloroformSdxn]

Finding story books to read with your kiddo is a great idea.
Did anyone mention The Jungle Book? Maybe not the original classic, but I imagine there may be an age-apporpriate version.
And my son LOVED the Robin Hood cartoon story book and flipped out when we saw the sheriff in the Halloween parade!

For this, you can pretty much find Little Golden Book versions of all the Disney stories on Amazon for a pretty reasonable price. They follow the Disney version, and the illustrations are in line with the animations.