St Mary's Media Arts Academic Publishes New Book

Programme Director for Design and Production at St Mary’s University, Twickenham Lee Brooks has published his new book Mouse to Mouse: In search of Walt Disney's mythical America. The book details a road trip taken by Lee and his family (including his wife, Sarah, who also happens to be an Academic Director at St Mary's) from Disneyland in California to Walt Disney World in Florida, four thousand miles across America, in a quest to discover his childhood image of an America, glimpsed through the legacy of Walt Disney. The book takes in Walt's first studio in Kansas City, his hometown of Marceline, Missouri and a host of coast-to-coast American icons and landmarks. Exploring how Walt Disney moulded the author's dreams of America, the book investigates how he gave voice to American values, dreams and pop culture, and how the 'real' America' that the family discovered found itself reflected in the worlds that Walt built on both coasts. Speaking of the book Lee said, “The first time I discovered a magical land called America in a picture book in my primary school library, almost forty years ago, I was instantly drawn to a technicolor picture of Disneyland. Since that day I have spent many holidays visiting Disney Parks, (not to mention teaching a University module about the subject) but had always hankered for a classic American road trip to see if my imaginary image of the nation still, or even ever, existed. Mouse to Mouse tells the story of a family on the move, and a dream fulfilled.”