From the dust cover:

Pinocchio has been hailed as Walt Disney's greatest film. Released three years after the triumph of Snow White, which won a special Academy Award for "providing an innovative new entertainment field," this classic story of a mischievous wooden marionette, or puppet, carried Disney animation to new heights. In late 1939 the book Walt Disney's Version of Pinocchio was published to coincide with the motion picture's release early the following year. Illustrated with the story sketches and animation roughs on which the Pinocchio animation was based, the book teemed with brilliant and lively drawings and paintings ordinarily not seen by the public.

This facsimile edition reproduces the original volume, now long out of print and a collector's item the art has been scattered, some of it preserved in the Disney Archives, some of it in art galleries and in the hands of private collectors.

The story of Pinocchio was based on Carlo Collodi's adventures of a marionette that first appeared in Italy more than a hundred years ago. Disney took off from the Italian original, change it considerably. In his hands the grotesque and gangly Pinocchio became more of a little boy, even though he was made of wood and had jointed legs and arms. But the most striking Disney contribution was his cast of supporting characters as interpreted by the Disney animators, characters whose brilliance adds luster to what had originally been a rather unpleasant and preachy tale. Jiminy Cricket, who acts as Pinocchio's conscience, nearly steals the show. Figaro the kitten, Cleo the goldfish, Monstro the whale, the urchin Lampwick, and the rascally Fox and Cat move against striking backgrounds, some of which were inspired by watercolors by the great illustrators Gustav Tenggren.

The third in Abrams' series of facsimiles of rare out-of-print Disney books, Pinocchio show win a whole new audience for a beloved favorite.

Introduction by Maurice Sendak.