How to host a Disney book club

This post contains affiliate links.

Do you like Disney?  Do you like to read?  Then a Disney book club might be a fun idea for you!  At least, it is for my friends and me.  What exactly is a Disney book club?  It’s pretty simple.  It’s just like any other regular book club but you gather a group of Disney fans and read books that are related to Disney!  Our first Disney book club meeting went surprisingly well, so I thought I’d share some tips in case anyone else wants to start one of their own!

Gather friends who are interested

The first step is finding a group of friends who are local and interested in Disney.  The idea for ours actually came up when we were backstage for the last show I was in, Anything Goes.  A bunch of Disney fans happened to be in the cast and somehow the idea was born!

Get organized

I added the people who seemed interested to a facebook group so we could talk about what we wanted to do.  The first thing we did was pick a date that we were all available.  With around 10 people who have very busy schedules it wasn’t always easy, but we came up with a Sunday afternoon about a month away.  You’ll also need to pick a meeting place.  For this first one I volunteered my house.  For our next meeting we are going to try and do brunch at a local restaurant!

Pick a book

The next step was to pick a book to read.  I’ve read some Disney related books and know of others so I started a poll in the facebook group to pick one of them.  There are non-fiction books, like biographies of Walt’s life or info about the theme parks, and then there are a bunch of fiction books.  My group definitely leaned towards preferring fiction, so we went with one of those.  Our choice was A Whole New World – A Twisted Tale, by Liz Braswell.  It was a re-telling of Aladdin but instead of the original story it talks about what would have happened if Jafar got the lamp from the Cave of Wonders instead of Aladdin.  It’s a YA level read so a quick one but pretty good!  If you need some ideas here are some other Disney books and the links to buy them on Amazon:

• A Whole New World – A Twisted Tale
• Realityland – True life adventures at Walt Disney World
• Walt Disney: An American Original (biography)
• The Haunted Mansion: Imagineering a Disney Classic
• A Frozen Heart
• Kindgom Keepers: Disney after Dark
• Before Tomorrowland
• The Beast Within – a Tale of Beauty’s Prince
• Poor Unfortunate Soul – a Tale of the Sea Witch

We’ve chosen the last one on this list, Poor Unfortunate Soul, as our next read in September!

Prepare Questions

It’s always a good idea to come up with some questions ahead of time.  Luckily our group did really well with just diving in and talking about it – I think we had a 45 minute continuous discussion.  But I had also come up with some questions in case we needed them.  If you choose A Whole New World as your book for book club here are a couple of questions to get you started (keep in mind these will contain some spoilers if you plan to read the book):

• We briefly meet Aladdin’s mother in the beginning.  How does this affect the story and give us perspective on Aladdin?
• The first couple of characters basically recap the movie.  Do you like this technique?
• Why did Aladdin and Jasmine fall for each other so completely?
• In this version there are no lies between Aladdin and Jasmine.  How does this change their relationship?
• Do you think it’s possible to be friends with someone you don’t agree with, like Aladdin and his childhood friends?
• What happened to Iago? The carpet?

Host your Meeting!

Set up chairs and maybe get a few snacks or drinks.  We made a specialty cocktail from Cocktails by Cody to go with the Aladdin theme.  The drink was called Rebel Royal and was inspired by Princess Jasmine.  People also brought wine and hummus/chips.  It was a great afternoon!  Once you finish your discussion, see if you can pick a book/meeting time to do it again!

Have you ever been part of a book club?  If you were in a Disney book club which book would you want to read?