{"id":14674,"date":"2016-12-29T00:01:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T05:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=14674"},"modified":"2025-05-27T14:17:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T18:17:44","slug":"film-books-disneys-moana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/film-books-disneys-moana\/","title":{"rendered":"Film & Books: Disney’s Moana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Moana<\/em><\/a>, the latest film from Disney Animations studios, is a hit by any measurement. So far, the film has grossed almost $284.5 million dollars in the U.S. alone, and currently has a 95% rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The titular heroine of Moana <\/em>is the daughter of a chief. She must journey across the ocean to find the demi-god Maui and rescue her people, an adventure that’s a nice change of pace from earlier princess movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

As the follow-up to Disney’s wildly, insanely, still-incredibly popular Frozen<\/em><\/a>, Moana <\/em>was destined for success, but the film has an ace in its pocket. How many movies can boast music and lyrics by librarian-favorite Lin Manuel Miranda? Librarians LOVE <\/a>Hamilton -they really<\/a>, really<\/a> do<\/a>. Moana <\/em>represents an opportunity to share Miranda’s lyrical mastery with a much younger audience. The songs are joyous ear-worms that incorporate traditional Polynesian music and language. On top of the excellent soundtrack, the voice work in the film is outstanding, and the animation is stunning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disney is billing the film as an original story, so book purchasing opportunities are limited to Disney branded tie-ins, of which there are many<\/a>. I have written before about my library’s loose “no tie-ins” policy, but Moana <\/em>represents a different issue to book selectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newest Disney film is not without its critics, who take issue with the way the film blends Polynesian cultures and myths together. I found this article to be a helpful guide<\/a> to the history of the Polynesian people and a good outline to the various criticisms of the movie. These include depicting the demi-god Maui as a stereotypical overweight Polynesian man<\/a>. These criticisms make me even less likely to buy the Disney tie-in media, but they do make me anxious to stock our shelves with authentic versions of the myths and history Moana<\/em> draws on in its story. This book would be a great start<\/a>, but it’s not available in the U.S. as of this blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you seeing an increase in Moana<\/em> requests at your library? If you know any great Polynesian mythology or history books, please share them in the comments below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moana, the latest film from Disney Animations studios, is a hit by any measurement. So far, the film has grossed almost $284.5 million dollars in the U.S. alone, and currently has a 95% rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The titular heroine of Moana is the daughter of a chief. She must journey across the ocean to find the demi-god Maui and rescue her people, an adventure that’s a nice change of pace from earlier princess movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[236,22,25],"tags":[1159,1158],"class_list":["post-14674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-elisabeth-gattullo","category-childrens-literature","category-evaluation-of-media","tag-hamilton","tag-moana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}