The Phantom Tollbooth

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 The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster  

I read this story so many times when I was a kid!  It came up in conversation/life a few times a couple of weeks ago, so I pulled it off the shelf and read it again.  If you're not familiar with it, put it on your summer reading list!

Milo is always in a hurry, and usually bored.  He's not a kid who pays attention to his surroundings, but he does notice when a large mystery package appears in his room.  It turns out to be a miniature (purple!) tollbooth, and to his surprise, when he drives through, he arrives in another world -- one where language and numbers are a little more real than they are here.

Milo travels through the Doldrums (where he gets lost) on his way to Dictionopolis, the great city of words, where he finds that King Azaz and his brother, the Mathematician king of Digitopolis, have hated each other for years and have banished their sisters, Rhyme and Reason.  Until the sisters return, confusion reigns in the kingdom, and nobody can be very happy.  So Milo sets out with his new friends, Tock the Watchdog and the Humbug, to see if he can do the impossible and bring Rhyme and Reason back.  On their way, they meet a huge number of people: Chroma, conductor of the color orchestra, Faintly Macabre the Which, the Dodecahedron, and many more.

The Phantom Tollbooth is almost unique in children's literature; it's pretty much a modern version of a medieval allegory, the kind where Wisdom and the Virtues battle it out with the Vices.  It's more like the Faerie Queene and the Pilgrim's Progress than it is like, say, Narnia. This gives Juster plenty of opportunities to play with puns (such as jumping to Conclusions, a desolate island) and create monsters like the Horrible Hopping Hindsight.  Here, you really do have to eat your words.

This story is particularly good as a read-aloud for ages 8+.  There are quite a few puns that depend on words modern kids won't be used to hearing (such as 'the dreadful row' and how it's pronounced), plus it's a great opportunity to practice your voices!  It's such a delightful story -- all kids should know it.  It's one of those that stick in your head, that are remembered for years.

Comments

  1. Amateur Reader (Tom)May 28, 2021 at 5:04 PM

    Finally, someone is reading the classics.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Deb Nance at ReaderbuzzMay 29, 2021 at 4:17 AM

    Phantom Tollbooth is a book my son read when he was young and it took me another fifteen years to finally read it. It's marvelous.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jenny @ Reading the EndMay 31, 2021 at 4:15 AM

    Gosh what a great book! I always feel particularly indebted to The Phantom Tollbooth for teaching me the word "macabre" -- useful to know!

    ReplyDelete

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