Making Disney Come Alive on the Page

When Susan Amerikaner, M.A. ’72, was  3 years old, she was already captivated by her Peter Pan toys. 

Her father, a film projectionist, noticed her fascination and snuck her up to his booth so he could show her the classic animated film.  

“Storytelling, the music, the rhyming words—all of that was so attractive to me back then,” said Amerikaner, who now lives in Camarillo, Calif. 

Little did she know then that she would one day spend decades writing books about Disney characters ranging from Mickey Mouse to Elsa to Moana. 

Her career would also offer her sneak peeks into Disney’s filmmaking process long before films debuted on the big screen. 

Amerikaner spent four decades as a children’s author for Disney Publishing Worldwide, expanding the adventures of beloved Disney characters beyond their films. She wrote about the Cars characters in “Super Spies,” tracked a new journey for the titular character in “Wreck-It Ralph’s Game On!" and added interactive wheels and sliding tabs to a book called “Mickey’s Day Out.” 

She also created gifted and talented workbooks, the first “thinking skills” books for young children. 

“To be part of the Disney family, it was truly a wonderful feeling,” she said.

After spending a childhood in Baltimore enthralled with books and writing, Amerikaner studied English at the University of Maryland.  

After graduation, she turned to teaching and earned her master’s degree in elementary education from GW, something she calls a formative experience. 

“The late great [GW education professor] Gloria Horrworth taught me two important things: Don’t read children your favorite book as a kid, they just won’t get into it like you did,” she recalled. “And she taught us how to read to children: She put the book in front of each child as she was reading it, and that was very inspiring to see.” 

Amerikaner taught at Saddlebrook Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md., and invigorated the classroom with her own approach to reading. 

It was that same instinct—making stories come alive for children—that eventually led her somewhere unexpected. 

In 1979, Amerikaner learned that Disney had an educational publishing division focused on children's books. Looking over Disney’s publicly available annual report, she found the executive in charge of the children’s books and wrote a letter asking if they had an opening for a writer. They didn’t have anything, but the Disney representative told her to drop in if she was in town. 

Amerikaner didn’t hesitate. She picked a date, told Disney she would be in Burbank and flew out. When she arrived, the company president was out of town, and she returned home disappointed. 

But luck played a role in her story. The president happened to be in D.C. a few weeks later and asked Amerikaner to meet. He was impressed with her experience and portfolio, and told her he would be in touch. 

Four weeks later, she received a phone call that would change her life. 

“They told me they had a job as an assistant in their educational media division and then said, ‘We have one main question for you: How much furniture do you have? Because we’re going to fly you out right now.’” 

Since that fateful day, she has written more than 200 books and scripts, and in 1993 her work on the Disney Channel show “Adventures in Wonderland” earned her an Emmy nomination and a trophy from the Writers Guild of America for Outstanding Children’s Script. 

To fully immerse herself in the Disney stories she brought to the page, Amerikaner would watch the relevant film up to a dozen times and learn everything she could about the character. 

“When I’m writing, I want to hear those voices in my head,” she said. 

If it’s a new film, she held a meeting with filmmakers almost a year before the movie was released, even if the film was only partially complete. 

“They would also give me a list of the characters and who they are and where they live, their characteristics,” Amerikaner added. 

Retirement from Disney has given her the chance to spend more time with her grandchildren, even reading some of her older books to them before bed. 

“They like them but, well, they still prefer Paw Patrol books,” she said with a smile.