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Reviews
Maps of the Disney Parks: Charting 60 Years from California to Shanghai by Kevin Neary, Susan Neary
tikitechie's review against another edition
4.0
As the title suggests, this is a large format book with tons of park maps and conceptual drawings of the Disney parks, from the original Disneyland “experiment” up through the latest plans at the time of publishing. They’re all rendered in excellent color and fairly well labeled. The maps are split up to coincide with rough “chapters” of the company history, which makes it interesting to see how things evolved over the decades.
While the map artifacts are neat to see, the writing here is really subpar. The blurbs in each chapter give a good sweeping account of the context in which the parks were built. Perhaps befitting an author whose blurb mentions his upcoming baseball books, don’t be surprised that they’re not very insightful or well written. (Y2K as a computer “virus”?) It’s mostly just broad sweeps of Disney accomplishments, not surprising given the author is clearly a “Disneyphile” who co-authored the Hidden Mickeys manual.
Given that the book is about park maps, one would expect these interstitial blurbs to discuss the park design, the layout considerations, the iterations of concepts and how newer parks incorporated lessons learned from earlier parks. But there are hardly any mention of these kinds of issues aside from the initial Disneyland plot planning. For example, there is less than a single paragraph mentioning how Walt’s idealistic life goal for EPCOT as a functional city was morphed into a theme park by his brother and shareholders.
Overall, there’s loads of great artistic pieces in here, but I ended up feeling disappointed in the end. Surely there are so many more interesting stories to write about these parks and designs that could have replaced descriptions of Cinderella Castle as a cake and corporate cheerleading.
While the map artifacts are neat to see, the writing here is really subpar. The blurbs in each chapter give a good sweeping account of the context in which the parks were built. Perhaps befitting an author whose blurb mentions his upcoming baseball books, don’t be surprised that they’re not very insightful or well written. (Y2K as a computer “virus”?) It’s mostly just broad sweeps of Disney accomplishments, not surprising given the author is clearly a “Disneyphile” who co-authored the Hidden Mickeys manual.
Given that the book is about park maps, one would expect these interstitial blurbs to discuss the park design, the layout considerations, the iterations of concepts and how newer parks incorporated lessons learned from earlier parks. But there are hardly any mention of these kinds of issues aside from the initial Disneyland plot planning. For example, there is less than a single paragraph mentioning how Walt’s idealistic life goal for EPCOT as a functional city was morphed into a theme park by his brother and shareholders.
Overall, there’s loads of great artistic pieces in here, but I ended up feeling disappointed in the end. Surely there are so many more interesting stories to write about these parks and designs that could have replaced descriptions of Cinderella Castle as a cake and corporate cheerleading.
timburbage's review against another edition
5.0
This is a book all about Disney and all about maps. Two of my favourite things.
The text here is interesting and doesnt overstay its welcome. Its great to see all of the different maps, especially of Disneyland throughout the years.
I probably wanted more of Tokyo Shanghai and Hong Kong, well in fact I just wanted more of everything because it was just so good.
The book itself is gorgeous and all of the pictures are great quality and even the paper has a really nice feel to it
The text here is interesting and doesnt overstay its welcome. Its great to see all of the different maps, especially of Disneyland throughout the years.
I probably wanted more of Tokyo Shanghai and Hong Kong, well in fact I just wanted more of everything because it was just so good.
The book itself is gorgeous and all of the pictures are great quality and even the paper has a really nice feel to it
ashleylm's review against another edition
4.0
Exactly what you would think it would be, but not so transcendental as to earn 5 stars. Lovely large reproductions of maps over the years, plus map-like drawn aerial views, plus prop maps used in attractions. For me, the balance of verbiage to image was too slight--I'd love to have commentary pointing out the idiosyncrasies of the maps, or noticing changes over the years, etc., but instead it was an overview of the decade on one page, followed by a series of pictures without commentary.
bellebelly's review against another edition
3.0
5 stars for the maps and art (although it would have been fun to see a few more reproductions of maps from the '80s and '90s).
1 star for the text. Holy moly, it is bad. In addition to being a not-very-engaging retread of information that anyone who is a big enough Disney Parks nerd to buy this book probably already knows, it is full of horrible grammar and stupid errors like "business tenants" instead of "business tenets." Maybe they were assuming that most people would just look at the pictures and not actually read it, but in that case, why bother including it to begin with?
1 star for the text. Holy moly, it is bad. In addition to being a not-very-engaging retread of information that anyone who is a big enough Disney Parks nerd to buy this book probably already knows, it is full of horrible grammar and stupid errors like "business tenants" instead of "business tenets." Maybe they were assuming that most people would just look at the pictures and not actually read it, but in that case, why bother including it to begin with?
theresamm's review against another edition
5.0
What a great book for Disney fans. I love pictures, and this book compiled all of the maps of my favorite things into one place. It was awesome. I absolutely love it and I never get tired of looking at it.
carissareadsbooks's review against another edition
5.0
The artwork in this coffee table book is beautiful and leaves you longing to travel to one of the destinations on one of the many park maps! Opening this book is a completely enjoyable experience. The artwork is magical just like the Disney parks! This is the perfect book for any fan of the Disney parks!
dizwiz's review
4.0
Was expecting it to be better than it is. It's good, but it's not as good as "Poster Art of the Disney Parks." I thought the book would showcase more of the changes that happened in the parks by showing the differences in the guidemaps. This focuses more on the concept art maps, as well as the souvenir maps. These are beautiful, of course. It just doesn't tell a story I was expecting it to tell.
robinrenee's review
emotional
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
Sadly the book doesn't have all the Disneyland and WDW Fun Maps in it, and the maps in the book don't fold out of the book, but have entire maps on one page (some needing a magnifying glass to read!). Nevertheless, it is a great collection of a sampling of Disney maps used over the decades, and a lovely nostalgic book.
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