Norton Juster's 1960's classic, The Phantom Tollbooth is an all-time favorite of mine. It is a gem -- a book for the ages, all of them. It is chock full of wisdom. Every time you read it, you find something meaningful. Sadly, I think the annotated version detracted from the magic of the book, which is an allegory. I had to read each chapter in full, and then go back to read the annotations so as to follow Milo's adventures.

The few annotations I liked by Leonard Marcus were those regarding synesthesia and how Norton Juster himself was able to get over his own troubles with numbers by association with colors, how the wonderful chapter entitled Colorful Symphony was almost deleted by the editor, how colors were an important element of psychedelic rock in the late 1960s, Juster's decision not to include the Chocolate Mouse, and how many readers were upset that the Mathemagician's letter to his brother, King Azaz, all in numbers was not written in code. Hopefully, I have spoiled this version so all of you can read the original version, which is a fantastic 5 star read, which I recommend without reservation. Jules Feiffer's classic illustrations have withstood the test of time too.

Here are my two favorite quotes in this reading:

"For always remember, that while it is wrong to use too few [words], it is often far worse to use too many."

"For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reason than you do for being right for the wrong reason."

I was also amused again by the cure for jumping to conclusions was a swim back through the sea of knowledge.

A classic of children's literature. I read it alongside my child when it was assigned for school. My previous direct exposure to it was strictly from the 1970 animated film version, which I would often randomly find playing on television during my own childhood. To my recollection, I never saw the start of it, so I did not know what tollbooth the title referred to. Usually, I happened to flip to it when Milo was in the Doldrums, and it was creepy with all of these slow, gloopy mud monsters. I don't know that I ever stuck around to watch the rest of it.

It's okay, it's kind of cute, kind of irritating. There's not much of a story. The purpose of it all is to have silly fun with words, expressions, and elementary concepts. The main character, Milo, doesn't have much to recommend him. He's merely a tool to bring the reader through the different lands that make up this secretly-educational world. Milo is particularly incurious. He drives his toy motorized car through a mysterious tollbooth that he finds and assembles in his bedroom, discovers that he is transported to a magical land of wonder, and all he can say is, "What nice weather it is."

If nothing else, the book might introduce children to some turns of phrase and expressions that are increasingly out of vogue, the term "dodecahedron", and what a census taker is (if they make the leap or think to ask about the meaning of "the senses taker" that Milo encounters). My kid doesn't find it especially interesting, but has enjoyed some of the humorous moments, such as when the Humbug, inundated with a complex math problem and scrambling to complete his calculations, then blurts out the random answer, "Seventeen!"

Illustrations are fine, occasionally strange. I asked myself, when Milo met the Spelling Bee, would you really call this a bee?:



We have a little hardcover edition that originated from "Middle Years Alternative School for Humanities" in Philalphia. I have no idea how or where we obtained it, but I do love when used books travel. It is slightly vandalized, but somehow this adds to its appeal, giving it a slight gothic flair:

☾ ⋆n  n    read n  n⋆ ☽

this book is so carefree