Looking through some collected Little Golden picture books from my youth, I found the story of "Bambi." I always thought that the story of "Bambi," had originated with Disney Studios, but apparently, it did not.
I wanted to see if there were any other versions and images of the picture book and discovered that there are, and they did not originate in the U.S. According to Wikipedia, The original author of the story was a person by the name of Felix Salten. The title was called Bambi, a Life in the Woods and was originally published in Berlin by Ullstein Verlag as Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde. It is a 1923 Austrian coming-of-age novel. I believe the author did not intend it to be a kids/children's story, per se like Walt Disney made it into. This is what the original cover art looked like.
I believe the author also wrote a sequel to the original, where Bambi and Faline have a family together involving other characters not so readily known, as "Thumper" the rabbit and "Flower" the skunk as in the Disney depiction of the story. It makes me wonder how Disney came to find the story. Here's
more on the topic of Walt Disney and Bambi.
As a child, I was presented to the animated motion picture first and then the book as it was released. It meant a lot to me to have the tangible pictures that I could look at over and over again. I loved Bambi tremendously, but I also fell in love with Thumper the little rabbit. Thumper was so silly and his voice, so irresistibly adorable. The story truly captured our young impressionable hearts.
I thought I'd read my original book still in pretty great shape for you, but truly every child needs a copy of there own.
