“After seeing how Disney butchered Felix Salten’s classic story Bambi—A Biography from the Forests (Berlin: Ullstein, 1923), I would grant that P. L. Travers has a valid point.”
I read Salten’s Bambi, yes, it was more serious but I’m interested in exactly what way you felt Disney butchered it.
For one thing, Disney dumbed the story down considerably. For example, he left out the argument between the fox and the dog over the relationship between man and nature. Disney's only reference to the discussion on the purpose of life between the two leaves that were about to fall from a tree during the fall season was merely a depiction of the two leaves falling. Disney also added characters and subplots that were not in the original novel.
However, I must say that I enjoyed the movie when I saw it at the Sundown Drive-in Theater in Whittier, Calif. in the late summer of 1957.
The translation of the book that I am familiar with is by Whittaker Chambers. My teacher read it to us when I was an elementary school student, and I read it again a few years ago. Yes, that's the same Whittaker Chambers whose testimony before Congress sent Soviet spy Alger Hiss to the slammer and launched Richard Nixon's career on the national stage.
A decent article comparing the book and the movie can be found here.