☞ "The Phantom Tollbooth" Was Supposed to Be a Nonfiction Book About Cities

Unexpectedness in Funding and Grant-Making

Apr 08, 2025

The Phantom Tollbooth was initially supposed to be a children’s book about cities.

Sort of.

Norton Juster, the author of The Phantom Tollbooth, initially received a grant from the Ford Foundation to write a book about cities aimed at children. But Juster was having trouble writing it and, as part of his procrastination, he ended up writing The Phantom Tollbooth.

And the best part was that the Ford Foundation didn’t seem to care!

In an article in The New Yorker, Juster tells the story:

Juster, who speaks with the soft accents of the old Brooklyn, began recalling the origins of the book: “I had come back from the service, and I went to work in an architectural office. I was really kind of bored with everything, and I think, I’ll do a little book on cities. The kind of book that will be interesting for kids. I applied to the Ford Foundation for a grant—old saying, when God wants to punish you, he gives you what you ask for!—and got the grant.”
“Five thousand bucks you got!” Feiffer interjected.
“Was it that much? Anyway, I was up to my ass in worries and notes and couldn’t get it done. And so I took a vacation with friends, at the beach, Fire Island.”
…
“My guilt for not doing it was overwhelming,” Juster continued. “So I started work on a little story about a kid who didn’t know what to do with himself, and didn’t like to learn. It was Milo! At that point, I just kept writing. When I finished the book, I felt very worried and very guilty. I thought the Ford Foundation was going to demand the money back.”
“I wondered what became of our money,” Feiffer said.
“After the book came out, I never heard from them. Long time later, I found that they were delighted about it.”

While I would certainly love to see a children’s book about cities by Juster, I am delighted by the fact that the Ford Foundation was supportive of this unexpected use of the grant.

From an interview with Juster, here is how he thought about the grant process and his concern that it had gone in a very unexpected direction:

RES: You also spoke, in that interview, about initially submitting a grant to write a childrens'[sic] book about urban aesthetics.
JUSTER: Oh yes. That's the book that I wanted not to do. That's why I wrote The Phantom Tollbooth.
RES: I think I speak on behalf of the entire planet in saying that we're so glad you changed your mind! I wondered though, and maybe other writers would too, whether or not the grant you applied for came through? And what happens in the event that one gets a grant for a specific purpose, then winds up using it for another purpose entirely? In this case for writing a different book?
JUSTER: Well that was on my mind, of course. So I sent a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth to the Ford Foundation, so they'd understand. And explained to them that I had not done the book that they had given me the grant for. I did this, and in all truthfulness, a number of things that were in The Phantom Tollbooth were generating some things that I'd been thinking about because of my work on the grant book.
One was the Cities Of Illusion and Reality — the cities disappear but people don't notice it. There were several things that came directly from things that I was either thinking about, or had done research about for the book on cities. Anyway, I explained all this and I never heard from them. But at that point I had my entire grant. So I had some money and the money did provide the time for me to do the book I wanted to write. So I hope they're not upset.
RES: Never having applied for a grant, I had no idea how it all worked.
JUSTER: Oh, neither did I. I was terrified! My sense is that when you give a grant — I mean, I have no experience so I'm now talking off the top of my head. But it seems to me, I think you have to be prepared for the idea that something will be generated that may not be exactly what you anticipated. But that's fine because the whole idea of giving someone a piece of time to pursue something, is that that pursuit might lead to something unanticipated. And that's great. So I don't think you can be that product oriented. I mean, there's a difference between taking a grant and squandering it or taking it fraudulently and not doing it. That would legitimately upset someone. But this is a different situation. It's one of the things that's very nice about the McArthur[sic] genius grant, which I have never gotten (Juster chuckles), I'm afraid. And I don't anticipate getting it. But one of the things I've always admired about that setup is they give the money and say, "Okay, this is to give you the time to pursue what you want."

Many philanthropic foundations grant-making agencies are today burdened by a great deal of accountability and metrics and reporting. Which sounds like a good thing, as we don’t want the money to be wasted. But it needn’t always be so. Sometimes grants should be more open-ended, funding “people not projects,” as per Alan Kay. Or even just a bit more flexible in where the work might take people.

As Juster notes above, “the whole idea of giving someone a piece of time to pursue something, is that that pursuit might lead to something unanticipated. And that's great.” This kind of open-endedness and unexpectedness in funding is vital. And we need so much more of it. ■

Just a reminder that my forthcoming book The Magic of Code is being published in a few months! I even made a little website for the book, with some very kind blurbs.

You can pre-order it now here.

The Enchanted Systems Roundup

Here are some links worth checking out that touch on the complex systems of our world (both built and natural):

🝊 What Limits a Cell’s Size? ‘Red blood cells are tiny and shaped like biconcave discs to aid with diffusion; by abandoning a spherical shape and evolving more toward a “donut,” they increase their surface area without compromising their compact volume.’

🜸 King of fruits: “But it may be useful to remember that the yellow pineapple that we can buy in any supermarket is, itself, the product of many careers’ worth of work. In fact, for centuries, the ‘ordinary’ pineapple was a supremely expensive luxury item in Europe, fit for the early modern equivalent of posting social media pictures (displaying the fruit at dinner parties among aristocrats).”

🝤 The Golden Age of Japanese Pencils, 1952-1967: “Isn't it strange that this historical essay includes purchase recommendations? That's kind of the beauty of our weird little industry. Most of the pencils discussed in this article are still manufactured and sold, even though there would never be another pencil launch to top Hi-Uni and MONO 100. Mitsubishi and Tombow each expanded and modernized their businesses, and today both are heritage brands with large, diversified product lines.”

🝳 Europe's strange border anomaly: “Not far from the Belgian border, the Netherlands municipality of Baarle-Nassau is home to nearly 30 Belgian enclaves, known collectively as Baarle-Hertog. On the map, they look like cartographic amoebae, some of them with Dutch nuclei inside.”

🜚 The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere: “As one scholar noted, once the manicule became a standardised, mass-produced typographic element, it lost the personal touch that had made it special.” A history of the symbol I use in the newsletter subject lines (thanks to Patrick for the link).

Until next time.