The Phantom Tollbooth

Norton Juster The Phantom Tollbooth

Copyright page

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Text copyright © 1961 by Norton Juster

Text copyright renewed 1989 by Norton Juster

Illustrations copyright © 1961 by Jules Feiffer

Illustrations copyright renewed 1989 by Jules Feiffer

Introduction copyright © 1996 by Maurice Sendak

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published by Random House, Inc., in 1964.

KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.randomhouse.com/kids

This title was originally cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

Juster, Norton: 1929- The phantom tollbooth.

Illustrated by Jules Feiffer.

New York, Epstein & Carroll; distributed by Random House

[1961] 255 p. illus. 24cm.

I. Title. PZ8.J98Ph 61-13202

eISBN: 978-0-375-98529-4

To Andy and Kenny,

who waited so patiently

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

An Appreciation

1. Milo

2. Beyond Expectations

3. Welcome to Dictionopolis

4. Confusion in the Market Place

5. Short Shrift

6. Faintly Macabre’s Story

7. The Royal Banquet

8. The Humbug Volunteers

9. It’s All in How You Look at Things

10. A Colorful Symphony

11. Dischord and Dynne

12. The Silent Valley

13. Unfortunate Conclusions

14. The Dodecahedron Leads the Way

15. This Way to Infinity

16. A Very Dirty Bird

17. Unwelcoming Committee

18. Castle in the Air

19. The Return of Rhyme and Reason

20. Good-by and Hello

An Appreciation

You know you’re in excellent hands when, in the midst of some nutty, didactic dialogue, the author disarms you.

“I guess I just wasn’t thinking,” said Milo.

“PRECISELY,” shouted the dog as his alarm went off again. “Now you know what you must do.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” admitted Milo, feeling quite stupid.

“Well,” continued the watchdog impatiently, “since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.” And with that he hopped into the car.

It’s what Tock, the literal watchdog (see the Feiffer illustration), says next that makes my heart melt, as it did on my very first reading way back when: “Do you mind if I get in? I love automobile rides.” There is the teeming-brained Norton Juster touching just the right note at just the right moment.

The Phantom Tollbooth leaps, soars, and abounds in right notes all over the place, as any proper masterpiece must. Early critics responded enthusiastically, garnishing their reviews with exuberant Justeresque puns and wordplay. Comparison with Alice in Wonderland was inevitable, “for the author displays a similar ingenuity, bite, and playfulness in his attack on the common usage of words.” All well and good—wonderful, in fact—this miracle of instant recognition by contemporary critics. And nice—lovely, even—to be compared to Alice, though I suspect Norton Juster would have preferred, if his book had to be compared, The Wind in the Willows. It was even compared to Bunyan! “As Pilgrim’s Progress is concerned with the awakening of the sluggardly spirit, The Phantom Tollbooth is concerned with the awakening of the lazy mind.”

All of the above would gladden the heart of any young writer, but comparisons to Carroll and Bunyan only begin to suggest the qualities that make Tollbooth so splendid. For me, it is primarily the heart and soul of Norton Juster—his menschkeit—that produced this marvel of a book. Another part of the marvel: even though Tollbooth is extraordinary fantasy, it is tightly hinged in the here and now, and conveys an urgent and vivid sense of reality. Jules Feiffer—that rare artist who can draw an idea—combines the same insistent reality and uninhibited fantasy in his superb scratchy-itchy pen drawings.