WILLIAMSBURG The students participating in the upcoming musical at the Anne T. Dunphy School might just be able to relate to the main character in “The Phantom Tollbooth Jr.,” a boy who in a fit of boredom visits the Kingdom of Wisdom.In real life,.
I was hooked. And all at once, transported back to fourth grade.
In the early grades, I attended a private school based on the educational philosophies of Rudolph Steiner, usually known as the Waldorf Schools. This was the mid-1970s, and the schoolâs creative, loving, holistic philosophy appealed to my New Age-adjacent mother, even though the schools were founded a half-century before anyone had heard the term âNew Age.â
I loved the school. It was a place where everyone could feel safe and fulfilled. We did marvelous hands-on projects, such as practicing medieval construction techniques by building the corner of a building in our classroom. Math was taught with allegorical stories and colorful pictures. Almost every activity involved drawing or sculpting or some other creative outlet.
Juster s classic book The Phantom Tollbooth tells the tale of a bored young boy, Milo, who is transported to a world of wonder when he drives through a magical tollbooth that has arrived without warning at his house. Photo: AP
Norton Juster, the celebrated children s author who fashioned a world of adventure and punning punditry in the million-selling classic
The Phantom Tollbooth and remained true to his wide-eyed self in such favourites as
The Dot And The Line and
Stark Naked, has died at 91.
Juster s death was confirmed on Tuesday by a spokesperson for Random House Children s Books, who did not immediately provide details. Juster s friend and fellow author Mo Willems tweeted on Tuesday that Juster ran out of stories” and died peacefully” the night before.