Between Books - Space Mountain

I am just not sure that the audience for the Little Golden Book Space Mountain by Nicole Johnson, illustrated by Mike Wall, and designed by Winnie Ho meet the height requirements for those wishing to enjoy the Disney attraction. The book follows a family, minus dad who is too scared, as they board, enjoy, and rejoin dad after enjoying the attraction. It is a clear-cut story with illustrations filled with brilliant colors. The Space Mountain featured in the story is clearly found in the Magic Kingdom due to the seating formation and being adjacent to the PeopleMover, because us Disney adults need to know.

I am not joking when I say Space Mountain’s audience likely do not meet the height requirements. It really is for a young child audience. And while other Little Golden Books may prepare a young rider to me this really communicates my friends and family on the ride will be okay. The book does not really match the ride scenes. For example, the book is wonderfully colorful and lacks darkness. Also, the scenes found on these pages do not match the actual attraction route. For example, I have never found any bake goods on the real-life route. If anything, this text makes it okay for young riders to not ride Space Mountain. Dad does not ride, so if an adult does not need to ride you do not need to either.

Color and fantastic snacks are the highlights for me in this young read. The book may not fully prepare a youngster for the fun of Space Mountain. But it will communicate that the attraction is a future fun adventure that is okay to be a bit afraid to ride. 

 

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Between Books - Space Mountain

I love Disney attractions!

I love comic books!

So yes let us take one of my all-time favorite roller coasters and turn it into a all-ages space comic adventure!

Space Mountain by Bryan Q. Miller and illustrated by Kelley Jones tells the story of two very different kids, Stella Marci and Thomas Ford, who win a trip to travel through time one day into the future with the crew of the Moonliner 7!  Of course anytime you include kids, trouble pops up and their trip changes all of time and makes their world a much different and darker place.  The kids have to find a way to free themselves from Space Mountain and travel through time to free the crew of the Moonliner 7 and restore their timeline.

In general, I enjoyed Space Mountain.  Bryan D. Miller's story is all-ages, so it is not overly complex or gritty but even as an adult you get the feeling that the stakes are high.  I found the kids to be the types of figures you would find in a Disney movie with Stella being brainy and by the book and Thomas being surprising smart but coloring outside the lines.  I feel like this is a story that one could easily hand to a kid, especially one who loves Space Mountain, and let their imagination grow as they see the familiar dome featured prominently on the cover.  However, I do find that I like Figment just a little bit more than this adventure (Between Books have ISBN numbers in general while Cap's Comics are single issues). And the Between Tween gave it a try but did not make it past the first ten pages.  But to be fair, the Between Tween is a hard grader on comics. 

It is easy for the Disney fan to enjoy this story visually.  Jones gives us very familiar images with first and foremost being Space Mountain floating outside a black hole as the base of time travel operations.  And for added fun we even get glimpses of Disneyland Paris' Space Mountain.  Though  I will admit  I do not personally see Space Mountain as a building not a space station so it floating in space threw me at times.  Along with Space Mountain, the main vessel is the Moonliner and it is the Orbitron that makes time travel possible.  And I do swear one building could have come right out of Tron.  And we also get references to Progress City and Tomorrowland to make Disney fanboys cheer.  The only real change I would request is that the Starchaser ships have a more blunt nose to make me think of Space Mountain ride vehicles more often.

Space Mountain already has a sequel in the works.  And this is good since the title left some unanswered questions!  Yes, I do plan to grab this next title.  But what I would really like to see is Disney try to sell you this graphic novel as you leave your favorite space port!