Thursday, October 10, 2013

A Review of Tinker Bell An Evolution Part 1 of 3

A Review of ~ Tinker Bell: An Evolution
By Mindy Johnson
Forward by John Lasseter
Act I of III




“I believe you’re going to like Tinker Bell . . . we fell in love with her . . .”
~ Walt Disney ~

“I believe if you love Tinker Bell you will enjoy this book!”
~ PrankingPixie ~

I am a huge Tinker Bell fan, as if you could not guess that by my blog and screen name. I’ve always been fascinated by her and identified with her feisty ways and feminine wiles. So when I heard about this book I knew I wanted it for my collection. This book was just released October 8th, 2013.

Reading experience: This is a quick “read” but is something you will enjoy looking at over and over again and taking your time with. The text is punctuated by beautiful pictures sharing the development and history of Tinker Bell. It is a book I see myself going back too again and again.

This book has so many interesting things to learn and see I’m going to break it up into 3 separate posts for ease of reading.

Again I must say thank you to Laura at Disney Publishing for sending me this book to review.

The book is set up as a 3 Act “Play”.
Act I shares Tink’s origin and travels from stage to cinema.
Act II shares how Walt Disney saw Tinker Bell and how she developed. In this “act” are the storyboards, some used some not and development sketches that lead to her final form. Also in Act II is Tink’s Film Debut.
Act III is about where Tink has gone before and where the Impish Icon is going from here.

I highly suggest this book for any Peter Pan, Tinker Bell or just Disney Fan out there. It is a great snapshot into JM Barrie, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Disney history and how a Disney character is developed.

That is it for the “No Spoilers” part of my review! Now for sharing what I found out! Read on if you wish or go get the book!! (Purchasing information, such as the ISBN # and links to the book on Amazon.com) will be at the end of this post.

Act I’s review:

December of 1904 at the Duke of York’s Theater in London the world was introduced to a little ball of magical light named Tinker Bell. JM Barrie had created his little fairy as a friend for a little boy that never wanted to grow up, Peter Pan. The world fell in love!

In the early 20th century the culture was fascinated with fairies and fairy lore. There were fairy associations groups dedicated to researching, find and photographing the wee folk. JM Barrie was intrigued as well.

In 1897, while taking a walk with his St. Bernard in London’s Kensington Gardens he met three young boys. The Llewelyn-Daves Boys became fast friends with Barrie. In fact the two families often spend time outside of London together on vacations. Barrie captured their adventures in pictures which he captioned and had found into books. Much of Peter Pan emerged from these photographed adventures.

When JM Barrie was working on the staging of Peter Pan he came up with many ways to depict Tinker Bell. One possible way he could have done it was to project an image of a live actress through reducing lens. This proved to be too cumbersome. So he looked into the then new technique of “Pepper’s Ghost” to create the illusion of his little fairy. This also proved impractical.

JM Barrie often stayed at his sister’s house to write. She had a lamp hanging in her entryway that would project spots of light around the room. This was said his inspiration to use a spot of light to represent his little fairy.

Tinker Bell was not the original name for the little imp. Michael, one of the Llewelyn-Daves Boys had a habit of pointing his toe in encouragement to his older brother’s antics. Originally the fairies name was to be “Tippytoe”. Tippytoe was given lines to speak in some of the earlier renditions of the Peter Pan play. But JM Barrie decided that her voice should, “Sound like the tingling of the little bells.” In the name became forever after Tinker Bell.

“Fairies never said,’ We feel happy’; what they say is,’ we feel dancey.’”
~ JM Barrie, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens ~

Link to my second post on this book:

Links and information on the book:
Tinker Bell An Evolution on
Amazon

Barns & Noble


ISBN #: 978-1-4231-7201-7



  
My Christmas book, “An Angel Remembers 25 Voices of Christmas” is available!!
This is a collection of 26 short Christmas stories that together bring the amazing events of Christ’s birth alive. It is my hope that this will help encourage families to spend 10-15 minutes a day together during the busy holiday season remembering the true reason for the season.
You can find it for ALL eReader formats and PDF at:

For your Nook the link is:

It is also available at the iTunes book store and many other ebook seller sites.
The only big site not carrying my book is Amazon.
You can download a Kindle version from Smashwords.com


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