The Phantom Tollbooth Review
Basic Info:
The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's fantasy adventure novel written by Norton Juster with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, published in 1961 by Random House (USA). It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do, drives through it in his toy car, transporting him to the Kingdom of Wisdom, once prosperous but now troubled. There, he acquires two faithful companions and goes on a quest to restore to the kingdom its exiled princesses—named Rhyme and Reason—from the Castle in the Air. In the process, he learns valuable lessons, finding a love of learning.
Review:
The Phantom Tollbooth is undoubtedly the finest children's book I've ever read, although I would recommend it for kids 11 and up, as younger children won't get the puns and the wordplay, and will just wonder what everyone's laughing about. Its positive messages are too numerous to relate, but I'll try later.
For now, let's just concentrate on why this book is so hilarious. As I said little children will find it hard to understand why it's so funny, but older ones will. The book's hilarity isn't in the usual jokes as found in other books and movies, rather it lies in it's play on words and pure craziness that's so funny. For instance, it transfers idioms and metaphors to reality, for instance jumping to conclusions, having to eat your own words, biting off more than you can chew, and the list goes on forever.
But at the same time, The Phantom Tollbooth doesn't just make you laugh, it also makes you think, as there's tons of symbolism to be found here such as that most people come out of the Sea of Knowledge completely dry, and a few come out completely soaked. The Positive Messages can be best summed up by CommonSenseMedia's review of it:
This book is driven by the view that learning is not only good and fun, but also a moral imperative. In the "Appreciation" foreword added in 1996, Maurice Sendak points out that it was actually compared to the robust Puritan spiritual tract Pilgrim's Progress for its "awakening of the lazy mind." The book begins with main character Milo thinking that life is boring and the pursuit of knowledge is worthless, but by the end, Milo has both the interest and the tools for learning, and a considerably more upbeat outlook.
Being dedicated to advancing the pursuit of knowledge, this book is fairly packed with educational material and clever perspectives on it. Wordplay and math problems are strewn exuberantly, along with commentary on social ills wrought by ignorance and mental laziness. Many of the whimsical characters Milo encounters along the way invite readers to look at long-held assumptions in new ways -- e.g., the airborne Alec Bings, who thinks Milo must be quite old to have his feet touching the ground already.Yup, that about sums it up!
If I ever get children, I'm going to give them The Phantom Tollbooth and Holes to read as soon as they're old enough (although it is worth saying that Holes is more suited and appropriate for teenagers), as this book answers all the questions frequently asked by young children: Why should I learn this, will I need this in life, this is boring and so on and so forth.
So my OVERALL RATING is for sure 10/10, and an absolute must-read for pretty dang near everyone.
