Theme Parks Books

Having recently visited Crater Lake, I wanted a book that came close to capturing the beauty of this place. This is simply the best.

Maybe this songbook will rejog those fond memories of Disney's Themeparks. I bought this primarily for Fantasmic (remember, this is piano music), and was impressed with the notation. These songs are intermediate in skill level, but you also get accurate and lively transcriptions as a trade off for difficulty. Though the songs were faithfully transcribed, the cheese factor is strong - limburger strong in some instances. By this I mean today's Disney is trying to tug on those heart strings with some cliche musical phrases and over-the-top lyrics. Here's a sample of the lyrics for "Just One Dream": "So many miracles are happening around us", "Like the Promise of the Sun we're born to shine", "We are the wings and we can fly into forever". OK you get my drift.

Having lived in Virginia, Tennessee, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Oklahoma, I can honestly say that Missouri has one of the best and strongest State Park Systems in the US. In fact, Missouri is a hidden gem in a nation of vacation goers who flock lemming like to Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Smokies.

Missouri is centrally located and has an outstanding highway system that gets you to all corners and to the most remote of its state parks.

This book provides a great source of photographs and text, which are enough to tease you for a visit to parks as diverse as Ha-Ha-Tonka, Washington State Park, Taum Sauk Mountain, and Babler to mention only a scant few.

Don't expect this tome to go into great detail about each of the parks. It doesn't, but the book's purpose is to relate how Missouri's State Park system evolved and then to showcase each one of them. And the book is remarkably succesful in achieving this goal. Perhaps the books most glaring shortcoming is the lack of maps, but this is a coffee table book and won't fit in most fanny packs.

It remains an oft looked at resource in my library. Many a trip began in its pages.

Grab a copy of this book, and let it guide you to some of Missouri's hidden treasures. And treasures they are. In 1978 I arrived in St. Louis, a Tennessee teen raised on Blue Ridge hiking. In my sullen anger at having been transplanted from God's country, I assumed Missouri had nothing to offer me. Some 25 years later, I continue to be pleasantly surprised by all that Missouri can offer. About the only thing Missouri can't provide are crowds...and that's a wonderful thing.

This is a great book, very candid and straightforward. I bought two other books before our trip to Disney and this one was by far the best. It provided great tips to save money and time not only at Disney, but also for the other attractions in and around Orlando.

...but could include more trip planning information (before you go). Other than that, it is a very complete guide on how to enjoy a vacation in the Orlando/Central Florida area.

This book, while hopelessly out-of-date according to the theme park situation in America, is a good look at the older amusement parks of the Northeastern United States. The focus of this book is definitely in that direction.

As a Chicago historian and a Hyde Park resident, I had to take a look at this book. In general, I am often disappointed in the Arcadia Press books. They are often little more than a bad picture book. But this is possibly one of the best in the Chicago series.

Hyde Park is a community that has just celebrated 150 years (in 2003). For more than 100 of those years it has been part of Chicago.

Hyde Park is the home of the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry and the site of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (recent building in the area uncovered the footings for the original Ferris Wheel). As such, the community has had a long and rich history.

I do not know who Leslie Hudson is (no biography in the book), but she obviously did her homework and research. The post card images have been captioned with detailed information. The book itself is divided into thematic sections with the cards sorted into a historical order.

I was a little disappointed in the sparseness of the Sans Souci material (on of Chicago's first amusement parks) as there are many wonderful post cards from there. There were also some other nuggets I was sorry to see missing (i.e. a hotel that suffered after it was recommended by the ...), but overall I was very pleased by the content and the thoroughness of much of the research.

A fine book for fans of Chicago history as well as fans of Hyde Park.

This calendar is the width of a normal calendar, but a bit taller. It's 14" tall, which means that it opens up to a 28" long hanging space on the wall. Be sure you have room before you order it. The calendar has one large photo for each month (which is about half the size of a regular calendar's photo), and also a small photo for each day. The squares to write appointments are at least 50% larger than on a normal calendar. The photos are really great. Another feature is that on each new opened page (for each month), all of the photos for that month come from a specific country. For the following month, all the photos are from another country, and so on.

There is only one drawback to this calendar, which is why I am only giving it four stars. In our case, we often look at a wall calendar from across the room, anywhere from 8-15 feet away, so all of the beautiful photos are too small to see. I recommend you buy this calendar if you will be placing it in a place where you will normally be seeing it from 3 feet or closer. If you will normally be further away, buy another style of calendar with one large photo.

They have really done an excellent job on this calendar, and it is printed on really beautiful, high-gloss paper. It would make a WONDERFUL gift for anyone who loves to travel (like me), especially since the scenes come from all over the world!

After I visited majestic Monument Valley, which bisects Utah and Arizona, where four states (AZ, UT, CO, & NM) meet, I searched for picture book that would bring back the memories of the beauty of the valley to me. I found such a book in "Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park," by the author, Companion Press. The book contains some historical background on the Valley (written by Anne Markward) mixed with some Native American thoughts and poetry. There are some amazing color photographs of the Valley as well as some early b & w photos of the Valley's inhabitants (Navajo Nation & early trader, Harry Goulding). I recommend the hardback edition. And for some moving pictures of Monument Valley, I recommend both John Ford's, the Searchers and James William Guerico's Electra Glide in Blue with feature the grandeur of Monument Valley.

My wife and I found this book to be very helpful while planning our trip to Orlando. After reading this book we wondered if we would have time to go to Disney. The book contains a lot of well organized information and would be very helpful to anyone planning on visiting Orlando.