The Phantom Tollbooth

This is my third time reading Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. The first time I was in third grade and while I was interested in the illustrations, I found the book terribly boring. I abandoned it after reading about 50 pages. The first time I finished it I was in 5th grade, and I enjoyed it...so I read it again in 7th grade and loved it even more. Now, over a dozen years later, I returned to Juster's world a third time (from start to finish).

In this story, boring and apathetic Milo has no clue what he ever wants to do. As it seems, he always prefers to do that which he is not doing at the present moment. He is a dull boy until one day he finds a toy tollbooth in his room. He takes a toy car of his, passes by the tollbooth, and finds himself in another world.

Through the book you follow Milo's adventures, accompanied by Tock, a literal watchdog, and the Humbug, a rather curmudgeony insect who thinks he knows much more than he actually does. They lull in the Duldrums, visit the land of Dictionopolis - the land of words, jump to the Island of Conclusions, roam the Valley of Sound, explore the world of Digitopolis, and eventually brave the Demons of Ignorance before attempting to rescue Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason.

Juster creates a magical world that is as funny as it is clever. He intertwines some of the most clever wordplay to ever appear in a book, but under it all is a poingant message: the real world has more fun things in it than you'd ever have time to explore. There are plenty of other lessons and interesting insight, but to find them, you have to read the book yourself.

This is one of my favorite fiction books of all time. If I kept a top ten, it would have a permanent place there. As an adult, I believe I loved reading this even more than I did as a child. Few books parallell Juster's creativity and cleverness. Lewis Caroll's Alice books come to mind, but off the top of my head I can't think of many other books that combine rich fantasy worlds with clever real-world fun.

Rating: An absolute classic, on par with any other fiction book ever written (in my opinion)

93/100