This week marked the passing of one of America’s great fantasists, Norton Juster, the creator of The Phantom Tollbooth, the wickedly punny allegory about how to wake up a wasted mind,  illustrated by Jules Feiffer.  Juster’s generous gift of a collection of foreign-language translations of The Phantom Tollbooth in 2018 was the occasion of this post, which is being repeated this week to celebrate the vitality of his contribution to children’s literature,  The Cotsen collection also has Feiffer drawings of the Triple Demons of Compromise, the Man in the Ceiling, and Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Witch to go along with the books. 

Norton Juster’s 1961 fantasy The Phantom Tollbooth is that rare classic in which the text and original illustrations are inseparable, rather like Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. Mention Alice and some illustration of her drawn by John Tenniel probably pops into the mind. Is Milo ever anyone but the skinny boy in a black sweater Jules Feiffer drew? And there’s only one cover design for the book. This one.

But when a work becomes so famous that translations in other languages are called for, covers and dust jackets have a way of changing publisher to publisher, country to country..

Here’s the front board of the Korean-language version. The right illustration is on the turquoise background, but the shade of turquoise is not quite the same as in the original. Look carefully and you can see that the figures of Milo and Tock are shiny. They were printed on a material other than paper and applied to the dust jacket. American books almost never have a colored band that wraps around the boards, but it’s common in the packaging of Japanese books–and I assume elsewhere in Asia. And the raised white characters below the banner with the English title are interesting typographically whether they are legible or not.

The selection of typefaces are the most noticeable change in the design for the Lithuanian-language. The slate blue background is handsome, but perhaps a little dark, compared to the turquoise original. The color did not photograph true, so you’ll have to take my word that it’s quite dark..The cover artist for the Romanian-language edition substituted another illustration for the original one of Milo and Toc and colorized it. Some of the figures were also printed on the same shiny material and laminated to the cover just as in the Korean translation. Should Milo’s car be orange? Why does he have blue hair? By the way, the sea in the middle distance is actually turquoise and the sky slate blue.

Now for the covers that are completely different from Feiffer’s. All the familiar characters are there, but without making any reference to the original illustrator. The Hebrew and German covers are in a surrealistic style, which underscores the possibility that the journey was all in Milo’s mind. The German translation has no text illustrations except for road signs, a concept that works very well.

The brightly colored cartoony covers for the Japanese- and Serbo-Croatian-language editions impose themselves on Juster’s world, rather than bringing out different dimensions of it. It’s unclear why Tock was given the teeth of a human being instead of a dog, unless the change was to make him look more friendly.

The French Livre de Poche paperback is unique in placing Tock and the Humbug center stage, with Milo and his car floating in the background along with the author’s name in an extremely small sans serif type. The French translation is, incidently, completely unillustrated except for Juster’s map. Last but not least is the Polish translation with a cover design by Grzegorz Kierzkowski. The title set in a wild mixture of different typefaces hints that what is to come may violate rhyme and reason! Kierzkowski deserves credit for having the confidence to reimagine Juster’s story without reference to Feiffer.

Norton Juster himself presented to Cotsen this delightful tasting menu of modern cover design on the translations of his celebrated fantasy. Thanks, Norton, for this very welcome and unexpected addition to the collection! You can hear Cotsen’s Outreach Coordinator Dana Sheridan’s interview with Norton on the Bibliofiles.

 

Yesterday we received the sad news that Henry Martin, ’48, New Yorker cartoonist, had passed away just a few weeks shy of his ninety-fifth birthday.  My colleague Julie Mellby posted this lovely tribute to Henry, who was a generous donor to Graphic Arts.  He was also one of the first to make a gift to Cotsen after it opened its doors in Firestone Library.  He was cleaning house and asked with his characteristic tact and wide smile if Cotsen would be interested in having the artwork for a Golden Book that he’d collaborated on with his daughter Ann.  I’d grown up chuckling over his New Yorker cartoons, but had no idea he’d ever created a picture book, much less one about moving, a subject that gives librarians the shakes.   It was altogether appropriate that Henry’s gift was honored at the close of the collections move during the Firestone Renovation.  Today we’re rerunning Ian Dooley’s 2015 post in memory of Henry, whose work was a reminder that humor need not always sting deeply to make us laugh and learn.

To celebrate the very early end of our recent department-wide collections move, we thought it would be fun to post about an item from the collection that’s all about moving.

Moving Day in Feather Town (1989) is a heart-warming picture book written by Ann M. Martin and illustrated by her father Henry Martin about two chickens, Fran and Emma, who decide to switch houses.

Ann’s name might sound familiar because she’s the author of the first 35 novels of the beloved “Baby-Sitters Club” series and the 2003 Newbery Medal award winner, A Corner of the Universe. Henry Martin is one of the famous New Yorker cartoonists and creator of a long running comic strip “Good News/Bad News,” among other things. Perhaps less known is that Ann happens to be a Princeton native and Henry a member of the Princeton University class of ’48 and donor to the Graphic Arts collection in Special Collections.

The Princeton connection explains why the Illustrator very kindly gifted his original artwork for the book to the Cotsen collection. So today I can not only show you some of the highlights of this story, I can showcase aspects of the production of the work as well.

The story Begins with a frustrated Fran and Emma waking up in their respective homes:

They’re both so envious of the other’s house and just sick of their boring old places!So they have they a great idea: swap houses!

And they both get excited and packed up and ready to move. But before long they both get cold feet. Unfortunately, neither has the heart to admit it to their friend. So they both decide to go through with it instead, on the day of the big parade no less:

And with heavy hearts, and all the items in the house packed away, each prepares her respective final act in the home:

But much to their mutual excitement, the two moving chicken friends get caught in the very parade they thought they’d miss. They even run into each other during the festivities:

Unfortunately they run into each other a little too literally and disaster strikes:

After all the commotion and confusion the pair are distraught and fear that they will never be allowed to join the parade again. Emma finally admits that she doesn’t want to move, and Fran is relieved at feeling the same. The friends part in happiness and return to their original houses:

Well so much for Fran and Emma’s move . . . but it all worked out in the end!

Our move to new vault space in Firestone Library, on the other hand, was much more necessary and much more efficiently handled. Not one crash!

***We’d like to thank the hard work and dedication of the CDTF team (you know who you are) and the Clancy-Cullen movers for doing such a great job.