I am a reader, and I measure my life in books, and the ones that I read in my very early years were probably the most formative. You can learn a lot about a person by what their childhood was like- whether they played outside all the time or preferred to stay indoors, whether they read or didn't, whether they drew or played sports or learned instruments and languages.

I, for one, loved words. I read many books with large words in them, and so I was always asking my mother what they meant, or looking them up in the dictionary, or trying to just guess. I loved long words, short words, words that were fun to say. I would spell them, write them down, sometimes just say them aloud in strings of total gibberish. Even as a child, I remember being amazed that I could make sounds with my mouth that other people could recognise and understand. The idea that I could say the word "apple," which really is an odd word when you look at it long enough, and that somebody else would know exactly what I was referring to was thrilling.

I used to play a word association game I made up where I would think of a word, then think of a word associated with that word, then a word associated with that word, and on and on until I either tried to get back to the word I started with or tried to see how far I could deviate from my original word. So a game might start with the word "pencil" and go from there to "paper," "bag," "rag," "towel," "trowel," "garden," "green," "leaf," "tree," "wood," "paper." Or I might start with "pencil" and go to "lead," "bed," "jumping," "kangaroo," "pouch," "couch," "sofa," "soda," "bubbles." This all took place in my brain, and sometimes I'd just sit in my room for hours and do this. (I would be lying if I said I didn't still do it occasionally.)

I loved books, too. I loved the idea that somebody could put words down on paper and that I could create a world in my mind based off of those words. From a young age, I followed characters, tried to predict plots, and lived in that lovely world somewhere between reality and imagination that we call literature.

All of this boils down to the fact that, to me, language was a playground. I'd make up words, speak backwards, sometimes go whole stretches of time just spelling out words instead of speaking, like "H-E-L-L-O (space) M-O-M (comma) H-O-W (space) A-R-E (space) Y-O-U (space) D-O-I-N-G (question mark)?" Punctuation, spelling, even fonts and typeface and foreign languages- everything related to words was something I was fond of.

And it all started with The Phantom Tollbooth.

Well, not exactly. I'd been doing a lot of this stuff even before I read the book, but The Phantom Tollbooth really helped to make these qualities stick with me.

Why? Because I felt the way I do whenever I find a great book: that I'm not alone. Norton Juster, through wordplay and illustrations and wit, showed me that language, and, to an even greater extent, knowledge, was a wonderful thing. As I read this book and travelled among the Whether Man, Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason, the Mathemagician, and King Azaz the Unabridged, as I read riddles and jokes and equations and utter nonsense and wise advice and snatches of song, as I ventured with Milo and Tock into the Doldrums and the Lands Beyond, to Dictionopolis and Digitopolis and up over the Mountains of Ignorance, I recognised myself in all of these things, and each one of them told me that I wasn't weird for loving language and reading compulsively and making up words and collecting utterly useless facts. Or more accurately, they told me that I was weird- but that there aren't enough weird people in the world who commit themselves to these things, so it was okay.

You can learn a lot about a person based on the books on their bookshelf: whether they're pristine or worn, whether they're organised or not, whether they've got notes written in the margins or flowers pressed between the covers or the signatures of authors. And if you were to look at my pitifully small bookshelf (the rest of my books reside in two enormous stacks by my bed), you would find a worn, torn, stained, and utterly beloved copy of The Phantom Tollbooth. And perhaps you would be able to tell, just by looking at it, that it taught me one of the most important lessons I've learned: that imagination is a beautiful thing, and even if you think that you're too old for things like word games and math equations and fun facts and puns and stories- things, in short, that bring you knowledge and delight, even if you think you've outgrown them... Deep down, they will never outgrow you.

This was a read aloud for my 9and 11 year old grandkids, while I attempt to "homeschool" after retiring May 1. We all enjoyed it but I think they actually enjoyed it more than I did, because they wanted to know if there was a sequel! We found it engaging, curiously educational, and weirdly humorous! Glad we read it!

I can't believe I didn't read this sooner! I have the feeling this would have been a childhood favorite.

It's got that classic, cozy feeling of books from another age, yet it still applies so well to the present. All the whimsical humor and deep truths herald back to another favorite classic of mine, Alice in Wonderland.

It's a story packed full of great messages. The fun characters, vibrant setting, sharp wit, and charming illustrations make this a classic for a reason.

What else can I say about this? Oh yes...WHEN CAN I REREAD IT??

5 stars!

Having spent much of this winter in less than wonderful health, I have been happily accepting donations of reading material from friends. One friend, on a lark, dropped off her copy of this old classic, which I last read probably at age 13 or so.

In re-reading it, I was reminded of the ambivalence I had about it on my first read back then. The level of cleverness is indeed impressive, at times dazzling, and for certain there are some fantastically humorous moments. It is also nice to read a morality tale with a message not of piety or "thou shalt nots," but rather of the fundamental importance of knowledge and openness to the lessons the world has to teach. At that, there is no doubt that this book has a beautiful heart, and I can hardly imagine any youth being anything but positively influenced by it.

That being said, more than once on this read, I was reminded of Edgar Allen Poe's famously ruthless critique of allegory as a literary style: "The best than can possibly be achieved is awakening in the reader a vague sense of being impressed by how well something was done that never should have been attempted in the first place." Certainly, there are times when Juster's allegorical style is strained and even forced to the point of being a tedious read. It is probably a price worth paying on a first read of the book for the many lovely things the story has to offer, but also a very good reason to read The Phantom Tollbooth only once in one's life.

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.

If I had to choose between reading this entire book or eating it...I'd ask whether I can prepare the pages in a way of my choosing. I think you could fold a book into some pulled pork and probably be okay. Maybe chili? And even if it was just straight up eating, I think I'd get through it faster with my mouth than my eyes.

This is painful to read. Like REALLY painful. Everything in it is so clever that it's a little gross. It's so cute. Like wouldn't it be funny if a watchdog was a dog with a watch embedded in it? And not in a Cronenburg way, in like a cute way? And then EVERYTHING in the book works that way. It's like Milo traveled to the land of Dad Jokes and instead of being a struggle for survival, it's just a wacky experience. In a real road trip through the land of Dad Jokes, you'd spend all your time trying to get that little go-kart up to speed so you could throw yourself out and die, bludgeoned by literal "bumps in the road," or maybe you could find a "fork in the road" and stab your eyes out.

This might be an adult critiquing a book for which he's not the audience, but I dunno. I think this book is one of those books that adults like way more than kids. Like Fantasia or something.

Anyway, skip this one unless you have special goggles for safety. I need to see my eye doctor because my eyes were rolling so hard.

This is so clever and so much fun to read. A delight for children *or adults* of all ages.

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I'm doing a project where I'm rereading some of my favorite books from adolescence and seeing how they hold up. Some of them are adult books and some of them are children's books. My most recent addition to the project is the delightful middle grade fantasy novel, THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH. Including this book on the list might actually be cheating because I read it for the first time elementary school (and also watched the movie, which is supremely creepy in the way that only 1970s movies can be creepy, by which I mean it is basically like a bad acid trip).



THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH is about a boy named Milo who is depressed and jaded and doesn't really take joy in anything. One day, a present shows up in his apartment. It's a cardboard tollbooth. Having nothing better to do, he decides to try it and ends up transported to a very strange world where numbers come out of mines and words can be eaten and demons live in the land of Ignorance.



This is definitely a book for children but it's wonderfully clever and I think one of the things I love most about it is how many layers it has. Like ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Juster loves to play with words and meaning, and it's just so witty. Every time I read it, I pick up more references, and I think that's the mark of a perfect work of children's literature-- something that becomes additive over the years and gains, rather than loses, its value.



3.5 stars

Up there in the ranks of all time great kids books

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.

Read several times when I was the age of the target audience. Love it and recommend it to everyone I know. Nowadays, maybe only 4.5 stars. But, yeah, one of my all-time favorites. And my son's.
....
Another reread. Still getting more out of it. So full of word-play, satire, adventure... and despite being 'dense' like that it's an easy & fast read. My son saw me reading it and said 'hey, when you're done I want to read it again.' And he's 22 and in college.

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: