The Other Disney, by Bernard Leo Remakus, is a warm, family-centered novel that blends sports fiction, inspirational fiction, and family drama into a story about character, resilience, and finding value in what you already have. At the center is the D’Isigny family, whose surname is pronounced “Disney,” a coincidence that gives the novel both its title and its running joke. Val D’Isigny is a former professional baseball player and Army MP trying to build a stable civilian life with his wife, Eleanor, and their son, Andy. When Val unexpectedly loses his security job just as ten-year-old Andy faces a disappointment of his own in Little League, the family’s plans, including a promised birthday trip to Walt Disney World, suddenly become much more complicated.

Some of the book’s strongest material comes from its baseball storyline. Remakus clearly enjoys the details of the game, and The Other Disney works surprisingly well as baseball fiction because practices, strategy, coaching, sportsmanship, and youth-league politics all have a real role in the plot. Andy is especially appealing. He’s talented without being defined solely by talent, and his decision to give up a coveted spot on the Dodgers so an older boy can have one says more about him than any home run could. Later, Val takes over a struggling team of overlooked kids, and the novel turns their season into a lively underdog story. The climactic game against the powerful Browns has plenty of baseball maneuvering, from bunts and base running to a memorable triple play, but the larger point is about what kids learn from the adults around them.

The novel shifts gears when the D’Isignys finally head to Florida, and this section gives the family adventure fiction side of the book its most distinctive hook. Because they can’t afford theme-park tickets, hotels, or restaurant meals, Eleanor devises a Walt Disney World birthday built around free transportation, resorts, sightseeing, animals, boardwalks, movies, fireworks, and food brought from home. That premise gives the title a second meaning: this is literally “the other Disney,” an experience built around everything surrounding the expensive attractions. These chapters have the relaxed feel of a family travel story, but they’re also where the novel’s ideas about gratitude and resourcefulness become most concrete. Andy’s delight in monorails, boats, the Skyliner, and a homemade birthday celebration works because the book has already established that he measures a good day by who he shares it with, not by its price tag.

As wholesome family fiction and inspirational contemporary fiction, The Other Disney is earnest about the values it wants to celebrate. Kindness tends to travel from one person to another, generosity creates unexpected opportunities, and the D’Isignys repeatedly influence people simply by treating them well. The final stretch brings those themes together when a chance encounter with another family changes the D’Isignys’ future in a dramatic way, while still keeping the story rooted in the relationships among Val, Eleanor, and Andy. Remakus writes in a straightforward, highly accessible style, with plenty of dialogue, baseball humor, and domestic detail. Readers looking for a hopeful family novel, an underdog sports story, and a feel-good tale about making the most of limited circumstances will find The Other Disney easy to settle into and clear about what matters most to its characters.

Pages: 88 | ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0FTFDK9NK