Juster – The Phantom Tollbooth

Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth. New York; Random House, 1996.

The Phantom Tollbooth is one of those titles which has been on my ‘to read’ list since… forever. Originally published in 1961, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, the book tells the story of young Milo “who didn’t know what to do with himself.” Given a tollbooth as a present, Milo journeys through it into the nonsense Kingdom of Wisdom which has fallen into disarray because it lacks both Rhyme & Reason. Milo, of course, is given the task of retrieving both Rhyme & Reason – who are princesses – to the kingdom. Along the way, he is joined by the watchdog Tock & meets such strange persons as King Azaz the Unabridged – ruler of Dictionopolis & travels to the Island of Conclusions – which can only be reached by jumping.

I only regret that I had waited so long to read this delightful book. Replete with clever (&, unfortunately, some not-so-clever) puns & wordplay, The Phantom Tollbooth is a treasure for anyone who loves language. The real genius of the work is that Juster’s work is clearly a didactic piece of literature disguised as fun. Children reading this book find themselves learning about math & language without even realizing it. On the down side, the plot & Milo’s travels, etc. are actually pretty simplistic. Nonetheless, the delight of the wordplay more than makes up for it & I’ve no doubt that younger readers won’t even notice the contrivances in the plot.

As an older book generally held to be a classic, I had some difficulty in finding professional reviews for The Phantom Tollbooth. As such, I settled for some popular ones. Steven Wu would “highly, highly recommend The Phantom Tollbooth for children,” but suggests that adults reading the book will find it “a charming tale – but nothing more.”[1] I disagree; I found it both charming AND clever; a Jasper Fforde for kids (except that it pre-dates Fforde by many years). LibraryThing had 97 popular reviews of the book & all of them that I saw were favorable including such praise as, “This book knocked my socks off,”[2] “Children’s literature at its finest,”[3] & “a classic childhood book, bar none.”[4]

The Phantom Tollbooth would be a great selection to read to older elementary/ early middle schoolers on class visits to the library – not the entire thing, of course, but a chapter or two could be wonderful. It’s definitely going on my list of regular recommendations for any kid that wants a funny or clever book.

---

[1] Wu, Steven. “The Phantom Tollbooth,” Steven Wu’s Book Reviews. http://www.scwu.com/bookreviews/h/JusterNortonPhantomTollboothThe.shtml (accessed 3/14/10).

[2] debnance, “The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster,” LibraryThing. Jan. 29, 2010. http://www.librarything.com/work/6320 (accessed 3/14/10).

[3] ibid.; jibrailis, Sep 23, 2009.

[4] ibid.; baobab, Feb 3, 2009.