The Phantom Tollbooth by norton juster

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

I think this is the only school book I liked.

Puberty had just taken effect and so I was tripping my balls off on hormones: "My boobs hurt. There is blood on my panties. I hate everyone. Does that dog have a clock on it?"

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LeynaSept

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

After the first 50 pages I know this will be on my bedside table for the rest of my life!

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sHorTyi_

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

Featured in grandma reads sessions. . .

This was a joy to read in my youth, and was a joy to read in my oldth. Fantastic!

In my birth family, we kids learned from an early age that claiming "bored" as a status would get you assigned to long work details overseen by Herself (Our-Mother-In-Charge). You had one warning prior - scary, steely and said with brittle cheerfulness: "Boredom is a Choice. Don't make it." If you didn't immediately skulk off to a place where you could clearly exhibit Curiosity and Exploratory Effort, you'd best just go find gloves, heavy canvas coverings and goggles and report for duty. When she threw a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth amongst our Lord of the Flies wrestle one hot afternoon, we laughed when we read within the first few pages that Milo was bored. My little brother mocked in a sing-song voice, “Boredom is a choice. . ." and we all finished at a full yell “. . . .don’t make it!!” Still, we liked a good book, and so stretched ourselves out longwise on the quilt that accompanied the book and was spread under the backyard pepper tree.

To be able to read this to my reading group, as a chapter book, to kids that love to read and be read to was a delight. Milo, Tock, the Humbug and all the other whimsical characters featured travel through fantasy lands that teach them (and all readers) about the wonders of the world they have left behind. As crazy and contentious, uncooperative and unreliable as it often seems, the surprising lands they’ve been tossed into provide many opportunities to appreciate the old world order and comfort of their everyday experience.

New words, new concepts, thoughts pulled inside out, perspectives tipped upside down, there’s almost no end to the chaos that Milo and his friends need to set right before they are allowed to return home. . .to that boring old - beloved - existence.

The gang LOVED this book. It made them think and believe in their own brilliance.

5 stars. Can't top that.

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Simplicity1511

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

A story based on puns and word play; about learning, noticing, and that wasting time is a waste of time. Very creative and imaginative, with lots of tongue-in-cheek potshots at some of the demons of existance: ignorance, boredom, misdirection… I have listened, which was a good medium for the story, but I would need to get a print copy for the quotes. The story is without Rhyme and Reason, quite literally, at least up until the end. Rhyme and Reason are princesses - which is how the story is made, making phrases literal… and Milo needs to get Rhyme and Reason back so Wisdom can once again flourish (wisdom is the kimgdom). This jumping around can get confusing, especially to conclusions.

The book is delightfully freewheeling, and even has a message: stop wasting time and start learning things, because ignorance is evil. I can get behind that.

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Izaya

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

Never read this

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heimdal7

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

Is this the cleverest book of all time? I think this is the cleverest book of all time.

I so deeply enjoyed rereading this. When I was younger, I would only keep books that I would reread over and over - and I would pick up each one, seriously, an average of 4 to 6 times. I believe this absolute insanity is why I was unable to reread for the subsequent, like, 6 years. But now we're BACK. And it's been a mixed bag, but rereading this was just the greatest.

There were so many puns and allusions and metaphors I didn't understand the first (eleven) times I read it, so they made rereading this like a whole new experience. I read it in a sitting! It was such a blast.

And - it thrills me to be able to state - THAT SETTING THOUGH!!!!! God, I want to drop a visit to the Lands Beyond so badly. Don't you guys wish you could jump into books, just for a hot second? Or, at the very least, a mysterious tollbooth would be given to you to grant you passage into a mysterious kingdom filled with puns. I mean, come on.

This is only going to be a mini review because I don't even know how much I can joke about this book. I have a major soft spot for it, okay?! We all have our things.

Bottom line: Totally give this book a try. It's compelling, and clever, and short, and the characters are so cute, and the setting is so fascinating and creative and fun and amazing, and the whole thing will stick to ya like glue. I'll never be able to escape this book, and I'm not mad about it.

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TomoyasaI

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

When I first read this in primary school, I don't suppose I noticed just how wonderful the vocabulary was, but it is, & I wish today's books weren't so diminished. That's the thing with older children's books, they stretched both mind & vocabulary, assuming you had someone to explain, or at least pass you the dictionary.

I absolutely love Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Which. The adventure through this world of words & imagination is a delight, a mind expansion for any age. I think this would be great fun for an adult to read to their kids or grandkids.

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todoke333

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

March 26,2025

Life works in such mysterious ways! There was this book that used to keep popping up as "Recommended for you" in my Amazon app. But as it was being advocated as a children's book (which I already own a ton of!) and it was a bit expensive, I was dilly-dallying about whether to buy it, in spite of the great reviews it had.

Just a few weeks of indecision later, I was conducting my usual inspection of the local secondhand bookshop and its treasures, when suddenly, my eyes landed on this very book that Amazon was convincing me to buy! Obviously, the price was just peanuts. So I just threw my uncertainty away and bought it.

Today, I am so tremendously happy that I followed my heart. Though "The Phantom Tollbooth" is a children's fantasy adventure novel, it is so fabulously written that every adult who is a child at heart will be able to enjoy this.

Choc-a-bloc with fantastically ridiculous characters & places with the silliest possible and yet totally apt names, the book keeps you on your toes, your mind constantly active looking for the myriad metaphors and subtle life lessons being imparted in so jesting a manner. The book is thoroughly humorous and very intelligently written; you keep admiring the author's imagination and grasp of the language.

Although the book would be a great read-aloud to children aged 8 and above, the vocabulary is really extensive, plus a lot of the intelligent humour would be lost on this age group. So I'd say, great independent read for ages 11 plus (with no upper age limit. Every logophile will love this book!)

Of course, the biggest joke was on me. I assumed this to be the work of a new author as I had heard neither of the book nor of the author, Norton Juster, prior to the Amazon push notification. Turns out that the book was first published in 1961! It's sad how some classics simply pass by you without your being aware of their existence.

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The Phantom Tollbooth

norton juster jules feiffer maurice sendak

This edition

Tock

Humbug

Milo (phantom Tollbooth)

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About the author

norton juster

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