Mickey Tries His Hand at Teleportation in Mickey and the Magic Cloak

When I was a kid, some of my favorite books were those from various series found in grocery stores or bought through mail order that featured Disney characters. I had quite a few of them at one time, but most of them made their way into garage sales when I wasn’t looking, so I’ve been getting a kick out of finding some of them from the library. One such book is Mickey and the Magic Cloak, which is part of the Disney’s Wonderful World of Reading series.

Mickey and the Magic Cloak is a pretty straightforward fairy tale that features Mickey and Minnie Mouse in the main roles. Mickey is a virtuous woodcutter who meets a mysterious old woman in the forest one day. She tasks him with a mission: to rescue Princess Minnie, who was locked in a tower by a malevolent magician she refused to marry. The old woman and the red-headed, long-bearded wizard are just regular old humans, as are the few people who turn up in the background. We also come upon several crows and a number of other individual animals, including a toad, a chicken and a monkey, and these look fairly realistic.

As is typical in these Mickey fairy tales, Mickey is humble and plucky. He goes about his life with a cheerful attitude and is never too thrown by whatever strange circumstances come his way. In this book, they are quite strange indeed, as he’s just minding his own business when an act of kindness leads to a dangerous mission. The old woman firsts asks Mickey to retrieve a cloak for her, a tricky task in itself. She then reveals that he will need to use the cloak to rescue the trapped Minnie. Of course, he’ll also have to keep his wits about him if he wants to get past the magician.

The magical cloak comes equipped with a very handy property: it will instantly zap the wearer to wherever he or she wants to go. Reading this, two thoughts occurred to me. First, why doesn’t Mickey zap himself directly into the tower with Princess Minnie instead of turning up at the front door of the castle where she is being held prisoner? And secondly, where can I get one?

As to the first question, it wouldn’t be much of a story if it were quite that simple. Mickey does need to face a complication or two. And it needs to be apparent that he’s got his own cleverness working for him and not just the magical objects that he has been given. It is a little overly convenient that even when he fails, he immediately finds himself back in the company of the old woman, who immediately gives him more magical goodies. And the magician plays right into Mickey’s hand. But this is fairly typical folktale behavior, and it’s still fun to see exactly how Mickey manages to defeat the baddie and save the princess.

This book was published in the 1970s, and it has an enjoyable look to it. The pictures are colorful, and Mickey and Minnie are instantly recognizable. I could easily see this as an animated short. The writing style is unadorned and probably roughly equivalent to a level 2 easy reader. While it’s not the most memorable book in the series, Mickey and the Magic Cloak is a fun Disney tale for a rainy day.