Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

In 1930, Bibo and Lang of New York published the first Disney-licensed publication, Mickey Mouse Book, which featured the story of how he met Walt Disney and got his name. Though it sold very well in book stores, the book was also distributed to movie theaters that hosted Mickey Mouse fan clubs as a gift for the members. The Book was soon followed a year later by a second book, the first one printed in hardback The Adventures of Mickey Mouse Book I, published by the David McKay Company, an illustrated storybook that presented stories with Mickey, Minnie and a variety of obscure characters from the original cartoon assemble (among them, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow) and mentioned and featured a character bearing the name "Donald Duck", just three years before the official Donald first appeared in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen (1934). The novelization of Lady and the Tramp written by Ward Greene was incidentally published in 1953, two years before the film's release. Since then, the Disney characters, films and television programs had have been adapted and subjected to various book formats; novels, storybooks, picture books, board books, booklets and even read-along book and records, tapes and CDs.