The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition & The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth.

This year, the celebrated children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth turned 50. It’s a fantastic story about a boy named Milo “who didn’t know what to do with himself — not just sometimes, but always.” It’s a book about being bored and uninterested, and discovering a whole new way of looking at, well, just about everything. Five decades later, the book still rings true — perhaps even more than ever, as our kids are constantly bombarded with the next new thing in the hopes of staving off boredom.

Norton Juster happened to live upstairs from Jules Feiffer at the time he was writing The Phantom Tollbooth, which is how Feiffer came to illustrate the story in his inimitable style: loose and full of movement. It’s hard to picture Milo and Tock the watchdog looking like anything else. This year, Random House published two new versions of the book to celebrate its anniversary. The first, The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition, includes the original story printed as it appeared 50 years ago (down to the pagination), in a nice hardcover with a clear plastic dust jacket. (I’ll admit — I’m not hugely fond of the dust jacket, which is kind of slick and hard to keep on.)

The 50th Anniversary Edition also includes several essays: there’s a brief intro by Juster himself, explaining briefly how he came to write The Phantom Tollbooth to begin with. (Key word: procrastination.) That’s followed by an “appreciation” by Maurice Sendak, written in 1996 for the book’s 35th anniversary. But at the back of the book are several more essays celebrating Milo’s journey, some from writers you may have heard of and some you haven’t. There’s Michael Chabon, whose article ran earlier this year in the New York Post. Also included are Jeanne Birdsall, author of the Penderwicks series; Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games; Philip Pullman, best known for His Dark Materials; and Mo Willems of the famed pigeon series.

There are also a few people that you may not have heard of, but their reflections on the book are also insightful. One by Bev Walnoha recounts her own experiences using the The Phantom Tollbooth in her fifth grade class for thirty-three years, having her students write letters to Juster and exploring these new lands along with Milo. Maria Nikolajeva, a Russian-born professor of education, was especially moving, as she described how the “arbitrary and incomprehensible” rules in the book reminded her of her own country, and how children’s literature can be a very subversive, incendiary thing in a totalitarian regime. For her, The Phantom Tollbooth took on specific, very important meanings, teaching her to think independently.

If you already own a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth, you may not need this new edition. However, I know that I recently had to replace my old paperback copy (which I’d had since I was a kid) because it was completely falling apart. It’s good to know that this hardcover will hold up to repeated readings — which it certainly will get.

The other new edition is The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. This also preserves the same pagination, but with extra-wide margins for all the annotations by Leonard Marcus, a children’s literature scholar (and also children’s book writer). If you’re a fan, this is a treasure trove of marginalia: Marcus explains the origins of many of the phrases and idioms used throughout the book, relates earlier versions of passages, and even includes some of Feiffer’s sketches and studies for particular illustrations.

The introductory essay by Marcus is also extensive, informative, and very well-researched. He discusses Juster’s life in a lot of detail, talking about his childhood anxieties about inanimate objects, his literary influences, his education. He then talks about Feiffer (without quite as much detail, but still a good deal of information), and then relates how the two ended up working together. Finally, there is quite a lot about The Phantom Tollbooth itself, the writing and illustration process, its reception early on and later. The entire essay is about 30 pages long, and is fascinating reading.

The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth isn’t one that you can easily set in your lap while curled up in a cozy chair — it’s more of a desktop reading book, and not a replacement for your battered paperback copy. But if Milo, Tock, and the Humbug have captured your imagination, it’s a terrific way to delve deeper into their world.

The 50th Anniversary Edition retails for $24.00 and the annotated version is $29.99.

Disclosure: GeekDad received review copies of both books.

Ray Bradbury's dystopian classic, Fahrenheit 451

For those of you who wouldn’t know, the Guardian Reading Group began with Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic, Fahrenheit 451, by readers’ choice.

That’s a great, revolutionary choice (so they said), that will especially appeal to us geek people in love with classical sci-fi, and to us parents looking for books to discuss with our children. Utopian and dystopian fiction is a fascinating subject, or so I think. I often study it with my sixteen and seventeen years old students.

If you never read it, “the novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books.” (Wikipedia)

[Head over to GeekMom to read the rest of Delphine's post about Ray Bradbury and his work.]

John Anealio's Sci-Fi Songs

There are book geeks and there are music geeks, but because songwriting itself is such a literary endeavor there is also a lot of cross-pollination between these two distinct tribes. Interestingly enough, the biggest geeks are very often the songwriters themselves.

Nerd music as we know it today is the product of mixed parentage. On the one side you have your classic filk circles — fan-made music that celebrates the dork arts. On the other there is heavy metal — music that leveraged outsider angst and nerd-friendly imagery within a more recognizably contemporary context. What we have in the modern era is a delightful hodgepodge of both wherein popular genres are bent to geektastic means. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this occasionally leads to a masterful mash-up of skillful songwriting and a true love of literature.

Rush – “Rivendell” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“Sunlight dances through the leaves / Soft winds stir the sighing trees / Lying in the warm grass /
Feel the sun upon your face.”
From seminal hard rockers Led Zeppelin to nerdcore rappers The Lords of the Rhymes, musicians have long responded favorably to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. With music and verse playing a large part in the narrative of the One Ring, it’s not surprising that so many have in turn drawn musical inspiration from that epic tale. Few have done so as beautifully, as delicately, as Canadian prog-rock power trio Rush. From 1975’s Fly By Night, “Rivendell” serves as an early example of the unique brand of lyrical leanings that would lead the band to its eventual nerd-heavy following.

MC Lars – “Ahab” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“Call me Ahab – what – monomaniac /Obsessed with success unlike Steve Wozniak.”
Oakland-born MC Lars is a graduate of California’s Stanford University – a fact he’ll certainly never let the listening public forget – and like all good English majors he grew up to be a songwriter. Lars has peppered his musical catalog with references to Poe and Shakespeare, but surely his most literate of tributes centers on Herman Melville’s sea-faring classic.

Tom Lehrer – “Oedipus Rex” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“From the Bible to the popular song / There’s one theme that we find right along / Of all ideals they hail as good / The most sublime is motherhood. “
Satirist, mathematician, musician and veritable geek icon Tom Lehrer paved the way for more modern incarnations like “Weird Al” Yankovic by writing music that was genuinely funny and unapologetically smart. Though quaint by today’s standards, performing a song about Oedipus in 1959 could be thought of as bold at the very least and more likely outright subversive. Gaze backward, ye geek musicians of the day, and you will see Tom Lehrer’s smiling, bespectacled face.

Anthrax – “Among the Living” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“Disease! Disease! Spreading the disease. / With some help from Captain Trips / he’ll bring the world down to his knees.”
It is a universal truth that nerds love two things – Stephen King and thrash metal. And though I totally just made that up Anthrax indeed represents both in equal measure. This The Stand-inspired track from 1987’s Among the Living was featured alongside slam dance classic “Caught in a Mosh,” the Judge Dredd tribute track “I am the Law” and “A Skeleton in the Closet,” a song inspired by King’s novella Apt Pupil.

Demons & Wizards – “The Gunslinger” [Amazon MP3]
“Song of turtle / And the cry of the bear / Awake / I can sense it / Still I’m afraid.”
Seemingly not to be outdone, power metal supergroup Demons & Wizards – composed of Blind Guardian vocalist Hansi Kürsch and Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer – took a love of Stephen King to the next logical level. Their sophomore album Touched by the Crimson King was heavily inspired by his Dark Tower series, with “The Gunslinger” focusing on the tale’s protagonist.

BlöödHag – “Anne McCaffrey” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“You know you’ve got to / run / to your dragon’s Weyr.”
Calling their style edu-core, Seattle’s BlöödHag combined the musical style of death metal with a love of literature to create a truly original concept. Punishing instrumentals layered with growled vocals containing biographical information about authors and plot points for some of their famed works helped them stand out, even among the nerdy music elite of the Pacific Northwest. Sadly they guys called it quits last year, but their 2006 Alternative Tentacles release Hell Bent for Letters remains a testament to the true strength of literary history.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets – “Shoggoths Away” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“While on a flight one day I passed over the polar city / And curious zipped down to see what I could glean / Behold the nightmare pit that splashed with piping shapeless monsters / I packed them in the bay of my B-17.”
Limiting themselves almost exclusively to songs written about H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets made a name for themselves the old fashioned way – with a steady stream of quality releases and an over-the-top stage show. Frontman/co-founder Toren Atkinson gains additional nerd cred for continually having his hands in role playing and card gaming culture, and songs like this lyrical take-off of At the Mountains of Madness ensure they remain in a class by themselves.

Harry and the Potters – “Save Ginny Weasley” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“Are you scared to walk through the hallways? / Are you worried that the spiders run away?”
In 2002 brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge unintentionally launched a sub-cultural revolution in the form of Wizard Rock. While songs about the Harry Potter series predate the band itself (the earliest if often attributed to their contemporaries The Switchblade Kittens), Harry and the Potters gave birth to the concept of the Harry-Potter theme band. While still derided in some circles, both Harry and the Potters and Wizard Rock endure, contributing to the shared heritage of the music of fandom as well as the world at large thanks to robust support of progressive social programs.

Iron Maiden – “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“Hear the rime of the Ancient mariner / See his eyes as he stops one of three / Mesmerises one of the wedding guests / Stay here and listen to the nightmares / of the sea.”
Last year comedian Brendon Small stunned non-geeks the world over by proclaiming “The ultimate trick that musicians played on the world is that they were cool.” Some of us, however, had already figured this out. My realization that rockers were really just dorks with more extravagant wardrobes occurred with the 1984 release of Iron Maiden’s Powerslave. It contained a heavy metal re-imagining of Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. From that point on Bruce Dickinson wasn’t foolin’ anybody!

John Anealio – “Rachel Rosen” [iTunes | Amazon MP3]
“My name is Rick Deckard, I’m in my hover car / I’m a bounty hunter for the city.”
Of late my favorite literary tune has come compliments of one of GeekDad’s own. In 2010 John Anealio parlayed his music blog Sci-Fi Songs into an album of the same name, and it boasted 11 tracks of lit rock majesty. The most impressive by far was his musical meditation on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – truly a geek rock anthem for the ages.

Image: Bloomsbury

Sequels. Some are bad. Some are worse. But some match the quality and excitement of the first, perhaps even surpassing it.

The sequel to 2009’s A Whole Nother Story, Another Whole Nother Story is everything a sequel should be. It carries on the storyline, and improves on the first book. Picking up where the original story left off, this book takes the Cheeseman family further on their adventures. Small spoiler: This book has the added benefit of time travel.

Unlike the first book where you often had no idea where the story was going and you just enjoyed the ride, in this one you know what the characters are trying to accomplish as the story progresses.

But like the first book, it is full of laughs and silliness, and is entertaining for both kids and adults. Also like the original, the chapters are interspersed with asides, information and humor in the voice of the author, Dr. Cuthbert Soup of the National Center for Unsolicited Advice. He goes on about tangentially related topics and can really share his voice there more than in the story itself.

I enjoyed this book so much that I feel it is better than the original. You are familiar with the characters, the storyline is more cohesive, and, well, there is time travel.

There isn’t much out there that makes me laugh out loud. An occasional comic strip. Badly done closed captioning from Beauty and the Geek (“brownie in motion”). Most episodes of The Big Bang Theory. It almost always takes something unexpected to make me laugh. But these books make me laugh out loud, many times per book. That’s quite a feat.

As I was getting close to the end of the story, I wondered how Dr. Soup was possibly going to wrap up the storyline in just a few pages. He didn’t, leaving plenty of loose ends for a third book. That makes me happy, knowing I’ll have another excellent book to read in the future, but sad because of the amount of time I’ll have to wait to read it. The third book won’t be out for another year, and then there will be a fourth book. But probably not a fifth. There is only so much room for the title on the cover, after all.

For adults, Another Whole Nother Story is an incredibly quick read. Partly because you want to see what happens next, and partly because it is so well written. And there aren’t too many big words. If you’re interested in reading what Dr. Soup has to say for himself when he isn’t writing, read a recent interview with him. Also check out Dr. Soup’s website, designed by Good Friend to GeekDad, Chuck Gamble.

Another Whole Nother Story retails for $16.99 and is great for anyone with a sense of humor, child or grown-up alike. But if you are interested in reading it, I highly recommend reading the first book first, A Whole Nother Story, as more of this book will make sense that way.

Note: I received a copy of this book for review purposes.

original illustration – public domain

Meet the downside to great works of literature being in the public domain: A sanitized version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is in the offing.

This new version, edited by a man named Alan Gribben who is actually a scholar of Mark Twain’s work, will remove the “n-word” and replace it with “slave,” and replace “injun” with “indian.” That anyone would consider himself worthy of re-editing Twain’s work is preposterous on its face; that a Twain scholar would do so is practically unthinkable.

Original book illustration - in the public domain.

Meet the downside to great works of literature being in the public domain: A sanitized version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is in the offing.

This new version, edited by a man named Alan Gribben who is actually a scholar of Mark Twain’s work, will remove the “n-word” and replace it with “slave,” and replace “injun” with “indian.” That anyone would consider himself worthy of re-editing Twain’s work is preposterous on its face; that a Twain scholar would do so is practically unthinkable.

For starters, as anyone who’s read the book knows, Huck Finn is a first-person narrative told by Huck himself. Huck is a boy living in Missouri in the late 1830s or early 1840s, with barely any education at all. Twain was very, very careful to evoke Huck’s dialect in his writing, which is why the “n-word” is used. It’s not only appropriate for Huck to use the word; it’s completely inappropriate for him to use any other word in its place. The fact that it makes people uncomfortable to read the word is not necessarily a bad thing! It helps to underscore how times change and values with them — making Huck’s choice of epithet conform to modern standards pulls him out of his time and place and makes it that much harder for the reader to identify with him. Yes, the book is challenging to read because of both its language and its content, but challenging books are oftentimes the best ones.

There are of course those who argue that the book is racist because of the use of the “n-word” and because Jim, the primary African-American character, is put in humorous situations in what they regard as stereotypical ways. It’s true that Jim does some silly things, but — and this point seems to be missed by a lot of people who should know better — he’s not the only character who does! Huck himself participates, as do the Duke and the King, and they’re all white. If you look at their words and actions throughout the book, Jim is in fact the only character who behaves honorably and honestly. Even when Huck decides to free Jim he does so thinking, because of his upbringing, that he’s doing something dishonorable and will surely be sent to hell when he dies.

There are those who point out that people edit Shakespeare all the time when producing his plays. In fact, Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing is one of my favorite film adaptations of Shakespeare (despite Keanu Reeves’s inexplicable presence), and it replaces the Bard’s “thou,” “thee,” and “thine” throughout with their modern forms “you” and “your.” That’s acceptable, I think, because the modern forms mean exactly what the old forms did: there are no shades of meaning lost. If it were possible to drop another word into Huck Finn to replace the “n-word” without altering the semantics of the text at all, I would be all for it; but “slave” does not qualify, nor does any other word I can think of. Besides, when Twain wrote the book, in the early 1880s, the “n-word” had long since been considered a pejorative, albeit not to the degree it is today. You can be sure that Twain chose to use the word for a reason, so Gribben’s decision to nullify that choice is beyond presumptuous.

Besides, how can we expect children to learn real history if we sanitize it for them? Should we pretend the “n-word” never existed? Why stop there — why not pretend the KKK is and always has been fictional? Just skip over Joe McCarthy and his witch hunts? Ignore the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II? America is not, has never been and never will be a flawless society; pretending otherwise only does our children a disservice by leaving them unprepared for the reality they’ll discover when they mature. We’ve come a long way in the fight against racism in the U.S. — you have but to look at our president to prove that. But our kids will never know how far we’ve come if we hide the reality of the struggle from them. And Huck Finn is, or at least can be, a part of that education in addition to being a great read (which it is).

I hope the recent uproar about the book causes its editor or publisher to reconsider its publication, and if not that it at least convinces bookstores and libraries not to purchase it. It’s the kind of censorship that produces ridiculous movie edits for broadcast — anyone who’s yelled at their TV when John McClane says “Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon” knows what I mean. It’s not just as good, it’s just wrong.

NOTE: I encourage anyone whose feelings about censorship are similar to mine to read Connie Willis’s excellent short story “Ado,” which isn’t available online but can be found in her book Impossible Things. (I encourage everyone to read every story in the book, in fact, but “Ado” is particularly appropriate in this case.)

While reading Neatherlands by Joesph O’Neil last night I got choked up and had to fight back tears. I get like that when the theme of broken relationships, particularly marital, comes up. After a separation where one character lived in New York and the other lived in London, the main character finds out his wife has found someone else. Any hope that this was just temporary is lost and the weight of it hits me hard in the chest. I don’t know why I am more likely to react to this scenario than I am to a child being hurt or dying but, while sad, those scenes don’t effect me as deeply as the dissolution of a marriage does.

I think part of the reason comes down to the numbers. 50% of marriages end in divorce but 50% of kids don’t die. Maybe it’s a statistical response to a much more likely scenario or maybe it is just a poke to a subconscious fear. While I know I am great for Beautiful and that she loves me I often feel like I’m the one in the relationship that pulled above my weight class. There is a CD I once made for her all about how I tricked her into loving me with songs like Wooden Teeth by Seabear (“We got married while you were still asleep“) or The Jayhawks I’m Gonna Make You Love Me (that’s right, it’s a Dawson’s Creek Fan video there, that’s how I roll). It is a running joke, that like all comedy has some basis in truth.

While I am not insecure about our marriage I do like being moved and effected by books. I like that reading something can touch a nerve inside and illicit an emotional response. I know that Beautiful is in love with me but I also don’t take that for granted. Love is not really the driving constant in a marriage I don’t think. But making sure that she knows that I appreciate her, that I see her, that I love her, and that she is the one I continually choose to live life with will go a long way in keeping her from waking up.

Image: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Pen and ink. Black and white. Cross-hatching. These are definitely not lost arts. At least not in David Macaulay’s hands.

This beautifully drawn, carefully written tale is a slight departure from everything else I’ve seen by the amazing David Macaulay. Rome Antics still contains plenty of architectural drawings, but the story itself is different and not historically based. The images are the lesson on Rome’s many ancient and historical buildings and sites.

The book follows the antics of a homing pigeon through the streets of Rome. After being charged with an important message, the pigeon treats us to a tour of one of our ancient cities of the world, but during modern day, to deliver the message to the intended recipient. Once you have completed reading the book for the first time and read the delivered message, each subsequent reading will have additional meaning for you. All I’ll say in addition is that in case you missed it at the beginning, you’ll discover the book’s play on words at the end of the story.

There is just enough text in this book to carry on the storyline, and give information about what buildings and sites you see. At the end of the book is an overview map of the city, showing where the pigeon flew. Following that, each landmark is drawn and described in more detail.

Rome Antics would be an excellent gift for anyone who loves Rome, or ancient buildings, or just a story well-told and well-shown. Whether it’s a gift for someone else, a gift for your children or a treat for yourself, this beautiful picture book will be treasured for a long time to come.

Rome Antics retails for $18 for hardcover and $9.99 for softcover. I have also reviewed another of David Macaulay’s books, Built to Last, for GeekDad.

Note: I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Photo: Judy Berna

I was quickly cruising through my email inbox on Friday morning, making sure there wasn’t something urgent needing my attention, when I came across a link to a New York Times article about how picture books are losing popularity. The subject matter stopped me in my tracks. I skimmed through the article, tagging it for a more in-depth read once I got my nine-year-old on the bus for school.

But the whole time we were going through our school morning routines the idea gnawed at me. The main point of the article is the idea that parents are anxious to get their kids into chapter books. There’s pressure to get your kid moving along the academic track as quickly as possible. Picture books are seen as something for little kids, a minor step on to bigger and better things. I understand the pressure parents are under to keep their children moving forward academically. But letting go of picture books too early is not the answer.

[Read more of this post at our companion site GeekMom.com]

Related articles

• Are Picture Books a Dying Breed? (wired.com)

Cover of Kid Beowulf

The Kid Beowulf graphic novel series has a simple, charming concept: Beowulf and Grendel are Secretly twin brothers. Once their secret connection is revealed, in Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath, they embark on a romp through classic literature. The second book in the series, Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland, takes up The Song of Roland and Orlando Furioso, while the forthcoming third book riffs on El Cid.

The books revel in the placenames and proper names of epic poetry. There’s lots of discussion of Heathobards, Geats, and Danes, and of the Saracens and Franks. At the same time, the books largely avoid the excesses of Thor-speak. There are a fair number of outbursts such as “By Woden,” or “Odin’s eye” for local color–in other words, exactly the sort of thing that a kid might enjoy picking up. The books do not, however, make a fetish of authenticity. Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland has a joke about union rep, for example, and the plot depends on the construction of an amusement park. The books are positioned clearly as a gateway drug to the classics, and do a good job of it.

Although the Kid Beowulf books draw on some pretty violent source material, they’re not gruesome or dark. Because Beowulf and Grendel are presented as bickering brothers, there’s a certain amount of slapstick fighting. The big battle scenes are not gruesome in any way–in general, the level of violence is about what you’d expect in a Tom and Jerry sketch. Kid Beowulf is drawn by Alexis E. Fajardo, whose day job is at the Charles M. Schulz Studio. The influence of Peanuts and other newspaper-style comic strips is readily apparent in the quick, flat visual style of the book–and in the use of black-and-white.

My 7-yr-old loves epic poetry–has strong opinions on Iliad translations (he prefers Fagles), and loves Simon Armitage’s recent version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and he liked these comics very well. Not as much as The Jedi Path, maybe, but that’s hardly a fair comparison.

You can see a trailer for the books here:

There’s a whole playlist of videos about the books. Also, Kid Beowulf and Blood-Bound Oath has been carved up into three iOS apps, with lots of bonus features. This weekend, the first app is free on iTunes. And the others are just $0.99–a bargain!