Ever wondered why the name Walt Disney always appears before some of the best animated films you have seen? What led to the creation of Mickey Mouse and his friends? How did the idea for Disneyland come about?

To find answers to these questions, let me present to you Whitney Stewart’s book, Who Was Walt Disney?, which covers the legendary filmmaker’s career in as few pages as possible.

According to this simply worded book, Walt Disney was always meant to entertain because he liked being the centre of everyone’s attention. It traces his journey from a boy born in Chicago in 1901 to his passing in 1966, but not before making millions around the world laugh with his animated cartoons, films and sometimes both rolled into one.

So how did a boy who loved to play practical jokes in school become the person who came up with the idea of Disneyland? Simple. According to this book, that boy never aged mentally, just like Peter Pan, the legendary character he played in school. The secret to his success, even after his death, remains that he always kept his inner kid alive, which is why he still connects with youth around the world.

Walt Disney’s life wasn’t a success from the start, as this book explains in detail. He had to draw pictures by hand to get a free haircut when he was young, put on a man’s uniform to enlist in the Army after being rejected for his kid’s attire, drove an ambulance during the First World War in France and lost his first creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to the very people he trusted with it.

After losing his beloved creation, he created Mickey Mouse, who became so popular that he is still considered one of the most recognisable characters around the globe. Walt Disney’s decision to make him less irritating was a masterstroke, as it gave birth to Donald Duck and other friends.

While the book delves into his first-ever feature film, Snow White, it also examines the setbacks of other films that followed. How Walt managed to make a comeback from all that is what makes this book a good read for young minds like yours. It teaches us that losing should never mean the end of the road and that when one door closes, many others open.

In the end, we also learn from this book that without Walt Disney’s children, he might never have come up with the idea for Disneyland. Nancy Harrison’s illustrations on these pages will help you understand how things worked in the past and how practicality kept the business running smoothly.

This book is a tribute to one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, so the next time the name Walt Disney comes up anywhere, you will know the effort that went into making it famous.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 8th, 2026