Juster, N. (1961). The Phantom Tollbooth. New York: Epstein & Carroll.
Milo, who is never very happy to be where he is, but when he goes somewhere else is not happy to be there either, finds a mysterious package in his bedroom. It is a tollbooth that takes him to the Lands Beyond. Oh my! He travels through the Doldrums, Dictionopolis, Digitopolis and other places with his faithful Watchdog looking for Rhyme and Reason to put the messed up kingdoms straight. A book of many levels.
My View:
When I picked up this book and began to read it one afternoon at the farmers’ market, I was amazed to find myself transported back to my fifth grade classroom at Emerson School. I could recall my seat, the long waterfall of Kristine Nordstrom’s hair in front of me, and even the quality of light coming through the west windows of the class. Now all those things are gone. The school has been replaced these thirty years now with a brick and glass structure on the old field. I haven’t seen or thought about Kristine for years, and I’m pretty sure that my old teacher is no longer among the living. But somehow reading those words I read so many years ago brought back the experience as if I had been eating a madeleine. For me, words do evoke more than just images. They are a sort of memory bank that records more than just the plot but also all my surroundings at the time I read it. I turned back into a fifth grader as I mined numbers and threw away jewels in Digitopolis. Similarly, I can go back to the feeling I had of new love whenever I read A Ring of Endless Light—recalling my first and last lovely days with Jeff so many years ago. And I’m sure that when I revisit The Book of Ebenezer LePage in years to come, I will again be back in those lovely final days before my life changed so drastically and Rhyme and Reason fled. Like Milo, I still seek them. Maybe they will reappear in time.
“Since its publication, the book has delighted young and old with Juster's humorous writing style and his wonderful play on words. It's time for this book to be re-introduced to a new audience. Students and teachers alike will find wonderful sentences for motivational quotations.”
Burdbridge, C. A. (1996). The Phantom Tollbooth, Book Report 15(2), 39.
Ideas for the library: Oh, this book has such potential! I can imagine an entire Phantom Tollbooth Party with different stations marked with the names of places Milo visited. In the Doldrums, kids would have to follow a maze or labyrinth, in the city of Dictionopolis, they could fill in a mad lib. Digitopolis could be a station where the kids could hunt for treasures (mine numbers) in a little wading pool filled with shredded paper. Oh, the ideas are limitless. I was thinking it would have to be done for a group of kids very familiar with the book, but now I’m not so sure. Plenty of newcomers came to the Narnia party and the Lemony Snicket day who just showed up for the fun. Those who know the story will get more out of it, but even those who just want something to do on a Saturday morning would have fun. Hmmm. I’ll see what the staff thinks.
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