The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer (illus.)
Milo never knew what to do with his time and he was always bored no matter what he did. Then one day he received a package. Inside this package was an assemble-yourself-tollbooth, a map, some coins and other travel apparatuses. With nothing better to do, Milo assembled the tollbooth, picked a place on the map and started driving along in his toy car. As Milo drove through that tollbooth, he stepped into an incredible adventure in a kingdom fraught with disarray. With his two new companions, Milo must rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason to restore order to the whole world.
I wonder how it’s possible that I grew up never reading this book. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. From the clever wordplay (I can never get enough of it!) to the sensory imagery (have you ever seen a din personified?), I devoured this book. It made me laugh, it made me think deeply, it made me forget that I was reading. I wish I had read this over and over as a child instead of for the first time now.
Image taken from http://www.amazon.com
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Tags: book review, children's books, cleverness, dogs, fantasy, ignorance, insects, kings, norton juster, numbers, princesses, road trips, senses, sight, sound, time, travel, wordplay, words
February 26, 2011 at 7:54 pm |
I adore The Phantom Tollbooth. I think so many kids can relate to Milo pre-tollbooth (I personally kept waiting for one to show up).
March 1, 2011 at 5:37 pm |
I read it over and over as a child and then found it again when I was in college. I was delighted to find that it stood up to an adult read. It’s my all-time favorite children’s book!
May 22, 2011 at 9:06 pm |
[...] of Butler from Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. The wordplay reminded me a little bit of The Phantom Tollbooth, probably because I read that recently. But the book didn’t seem like a copy of anything. [...]
June 24, 2011 at 4:57 pm |
[...] The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer Oh my goodness. I seriously do not understand how I got through my childhood never having read this book. I think about it all the time. It’s one of my favorites. I’d put it on par with Narnia. And if you know me, that’s a pretty big deal. [...]
July 27, 2011 at 4:49 pm |
[...] in my life have been The Chronicles of Narnia, which I’ve been reading since I was a kid, and The Phantom Tollbooth, which I read only a few months [...]
August 9, 2011 at 4:24 pm |
[...] to happen, sort of. Part The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, part Alice in Wonderland, part The Phantom Tollbooth with a dash of The Wizard of Oz, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making [...]