NPR – “A large dog with an alarm clock for a body (a “watchdog,” if you will). A giant bee who can apparently spell any word. A figure with 12 faces, one for each emotion. These are just some of the fantastic characters author Norton Juster created in his beloved 1961 children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth. Juster died Monday at his home in Northampton, Mass. He was 91 years old. The cause was complications from a recent stroke, according to a statement from his daughter, Emily Juster. The Phantom Tollbooth told the story of Milo, a young boy utterly bored and disaffected with the world around him until a mysterious and magical tollbooth shows up. He drives his toy car through and it leads him on an unexpected adventure — one that encourages Milo’s curiosity and inspires a love of learning new things. “I had been an odd child,” Juster wrote in a 2011 essay for NPR marking the book’s 50th anniversary. “Quiet, introverted and moody. When I grew up, I still felt like that puzzled kid: disconnected, disinterested and confused. There was no rhyme or reason in that kid’s life.”…