The Phantom Tollbooth

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Milo is a perfectly normal boy - with too much time on his hands, and not enough ways to use it up. Nothing he does or learns seems to have a point, nowhere he goes seems interesting enough. Alone with his unhappy thoughts, the big, bustling world often feels small and empty to him. Then one day, Milo returns home to find a large package addressed to him - "ONE GENUINE TURNPIKE TOLLBOOTH - IF NOT PERFECTLY SATISFIED, YOUR WASTED TIME WILL BE REFUNDED" - and since he has nothing better to do, he drives his electric car through the Tollbooth, and finds himself in the Kingdom of Wisdom, where many adventures await!

I always try to read all the books my daughter brings home - mainly to make sure she's not reading anything inappropriate - more honestly, because children's books are so much fun! It's also unexpectedly rewarding when, once in a while, comes along a book that far transcends the genre of 'Children's books', a book which is quite simply - more than a story! 'The Phantom Tollbooth' by Norton Juster falls firmly in this category, and I have to admit that I'm absolutely bowled over! Quirky, funny, witty, highly entertaining, wonderfully brought to life by Jules Feiffer's whimsical illustrations - this is one children's book that should find its way to all bookshelves!

The story is simple enough - as Milo makes his way through the Kingdom of Wisdom, he finds himself on a quest to rescue the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason from the Castle of Air. He starts at Expectations - "Expectations is the place you must always go before you get to where you're going" -  and soon finds himself stuck in the Doldrums - where "nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes" - only to be rescued by Tock, the watchdog. Onwards to Dictionopolis, where words are grown on trees, and then through the Forest of Sight and Valley of Sound, to the twin cities of Reality and Illusion - then finally after an unanticipated detour to the island of Conclusions, Milo arrives in Digitopolis, where numbers are mined!

The people he meets along the way are as strange and confusing as the land Milo finds himself in. The kings of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, respectively Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician, are brothers who agree to disagree. The Lethargians - who inhabit the Doldrums, the Faintly Macabre Which and the Soundkeeper - keepers of words and sound, Chroma the Great - conductor of the orchestra of color, the Spelling Bee and his nemesis, the Humbug, the Dodecahedron whose impassioned expostulation about the beauty of numbers is one of the high points in the book - what a wonderful array of characters! I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite if I had to!

Milo sets off on his quest with the loyal Tock and the brash Humbug - but rescuing the princesses is not an easy task. Through the Mountains of Ignorance Milo battles on, facing demons as varied as the characters he has met before - the Terrible Trivium, the Senses Taker, the Triple Demons of Compromise, the Gorgons of Hate and Malice, and the seemingly harmless but equally dangerous, Threadbare Excuse and Gross Exaggeration! Goes without saying that Milo triumphs over all these terrifying demons, and rescues the princesses - and when he returns in triumph, he finds that he has just done something that was actually impossible to do! In the words of the kings - "so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they are impossible"!

What I love most about is this book, is that all ages can enjoy it on different levels. Read it to your younger children - they will love the simply told adventures of Milo and his companions. Older children, who often wonder why they have to learn to spell or multiply, will see how important numbers and words really are - "in the cloak of knowledge, one is warp and the other weft"! As for adults, this book is an allegory - the simple words and interesting story are but a facade to the story of all our lives. How many of us have been stuck in the Doldrums, and not known how to move on? Or jumped to Conclusions, never knowing that the only escape is through the Sea of Knowledge? And as we struggle daily to find Rhyme and Reason, how many of us have fallen prey to the Demons of Ignorance?

So although results are never guaranteed - go ahead, pick up a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth - if not perfectly satisfied, your wasted time will be refunded! Happy Reading!