A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis

By Dave Shute

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

YOUR PERSONAL DISNEY LIBRARY (21)

By Jim Korkis

• The Wonders of Walt Disney World by Aaron H. Goldberg

When reviewing a book, in general, a reviewer should try to keep at least three things in mind: What was the author trying to do? How well did they do it? Was it worth doing in the first place?

In general, I avoid reviewing guidebooks for a number of reasons. First, they have a limited lifespan since Disney changes so frequently and without warning so that they are often already out-of-date before they are even published.

Second, there are many terrific and well-proven guidebooks that are already in existence and are updated each year including the iconic Birnbaum guides as well as The easy Guide among others. In addition, for people needing information about WDW, there are multiple websites that not only supply practical information but share valuable tips and back story information as well.

When I saw the title The Wonder of Walt Disney World on a new book, I was intrigued. I also saw that the author in the description emphasizes that he was not producing a guidebook.

In the introduction, Goldberg writes, “It is a book with tips, trivia and secret stories…I aim to give you a backstory on the backstory as we work our way through each and every Disney park, visiting all the popular attractions, highlighting the secrets and magic that make WDW so special.”

With his stated goal as to create “an informative resource…that is a comprehensive and entertaining tour designed for both easy reading and reference”, then the book falls far short of those expectations.

In short, it is just another guidebook, and not a very effective one.

Goldberg admits that much of the information he uses came from WDW News, the Walt Disney Company’s fact, information and press-release website for the media and public. He uses the exact words from that site to describe the attractions, restaurants and more and accompanies them all with the review ratings (used by permission) from TripAdvisor. So much of the information comes word-for-word from those two websites.

His secret stories are often just direct quotes from other books like Rolly Crump’s It’s Kind of a Cute Story, Alex Wright’s Imagineering Field Guides, Jeff Kurtti’s Since the World Began, Melody Malmberg’s The Making of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Jason Surrell’s The Haunted Mansion: Imagineering a Disney Classic and other familiar and still easily attainable books, as well as articles from the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. I liked that he did indeed acknowledge those sources.

Perhaps my expectations were too high judging from the author’s description of what he thinks the book actually is. He emphatically states that it is not a guidebook so I am writing this book to let you know that it is a guidebook.

I was not a fan of his offhand conversational approach to walking through each park as it offered no new information or new perspective on existing information but you might enjoy it.

Goldberg has visited the Walt Disney World Resort “more times than his wallet cares to remember” and is the author of The Disney Story which is a compilation of newspaper articles and the short kid-oriented biography Meet the Disney Brothers.

I am still puzzled why he felt this book filled a gap not supplied by so many other books and websites that do it so much better, especially for people who have never been to Walt Disney World. However, I love the title of the book but in this case, buyer beware if you purchase it thinking it is something other than a guidebook.

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Thanks, Jim! Jim has more on the history of Disney guidebooks here, in a fine essay that fittingly ends with mine!  (He wrote it years before he began writing for me…) And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, The Unofficial Walt Disney World 1971 Companion: Stories of How the World Began, and Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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