Don't listen to them! Math is fun!

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	• The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster Bullseye Books, 1988 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 544 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Don't listen to them! Math is fun!

Overall it was fun, light, enjoyable story - especially groaning at all of those puns. I did feel the math side was a little badly treated - the author made it more difficult and confusing than the English side, but that could be the engineer bias in me. I hate it when people make math sound hard because, well, I like math.

I'm not so sure how well any kid would actually learn the lessons that they're trying to instill in this story, maybe it depends on their age (I'm no expert on kids). But it seemed a lot of the puns were a little convoluted, a little reaching, for younger children to understand. And the plot was probably a little young for older children to really enjoy.

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Cute read

Reading it for the first time as an adult, I wish I had read it when I was younger and could have appreciated it better. Cute, full of puns and anecdotes. I look forward to sharing it with my daughter, which I believe to be a much more fun way of reading the book as an adult (to share with a child) than as a stand alone. For young (elementary school age) children, easily a 5/5.

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WOW...W-O-W...

Wow...just simply...W-O-W! I have never read or imagined a more moving book than `The Phantom Tollbooth' in all of my years, literally to tears of pure astonished and thought-provoked amazement and wonder! I picked this book up from where it sat, among a collection of books that I had already read, some I had not even touched, and others I hadn't seen in years in preparation for a garage sale for my church. Sorting through the books, I perhaps wantonly decided which one's I had grown out of between which ones I still liked, trying to decide whether I like them enough to possibly re-read or not when I happened upon the plain-looking blue covered Phantom Tollbooth.
I had never read it before, and as it hovered before the box of books to be sold for anywhere between fifty cents to two dollars, I thought it would be shame to have not read it. After all, I recalled, during Quiz Bowl practices many of the literary questions often referred to this very book. I had heard that it was one of those classic books of all times that every one is supposed to have read during their lifetime... The kind that has that silver of gold medal stamp on them for an out-standing novel award, though the plain cover I held between my hands was merely that of a boy and a dog with a watch for a belly, did not.
And so I turned to the first page, and was instantly and immediately sucked into Milo's adventure, unprepared for the moving of my heart so. Opening my eyes to so many things that I had missed, realizations of my own heart and mind, of life...Shocked does not even begin to describe it. With such a simple logic, humor, and words Norton Juster has taught me more than most of my High School teachers (although I think, now that I can look back, many have been telling me these same things in different ways). But as a fellow hopeful future writer of novels, the format of a book that shared a love of knowledge and words and imagination in such a new, timelessly profound way had me riveted to each turning page and ink pressed word... WOW...Wow...wow I found myself breathless and watery eyed by the time I had finished... Completely forgetting about all the other books I still had to sort between selling or keeping or re-reading...compelled to write about this "Novel Renaissance" as I realize how much more of life I have yet to be awakened to. THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, in the words of the Spelling Bee. LONG LIVEMILO, TOCK, HUMBUG, AND NORTON JUSTER!
If you have not read it or have not read in a long time, you absolutely MUST read it. And not because you have to read it for some English teacher or because your parents say you should, not because it has all this literary acclaim or a shiny silver or gold circle plastered on the cover. Not even because it has a strange cover (I know, I really must stop judging books by their covers...they tend to become offended with me...)
But because the more you look at that boy on the cover and the strange dog with a watch for a belly you simply have to wonder, I wonder what that's all about... And then immediately thinking those very words, please open to the first page of that very first chapter and begin with those gripping fish-hook words of "There was once a boy named Milo..."
Wow...simply wow...

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the best book ever

The Phantom Tollbooth is an amazing book with a funny character named Milo who thinks there is never anything to do. Milo finds a strange box inside his room that says "tollbooth". He soon ends up taking a ride through his wildest dreams. What I liked about this story was the mind sizzling vocabulary and the challenging to understand phrases they used in Dictionopolis,Digitopolis,Doldrums,and the many other places.

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth is a wonderfully ridiculous tale. Milo, a kid with nothing to do, discovers a strange cardboared tollbooth leading to a magnificient world. In this strange world, he encounters many queer allies. Milo can easily be related to because before he discovers the tollbooth, he is bored and has nothing to do. My favorite part of the book is the end, which I won't give away. All in all, I really liked this book. I recommend this book to advanced readers and people who don't easily get confused. Have fun reading The Phantom Tollbooth.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Illustrated in black-and-white. This ingenious fantasy centers around Milo, a bored ten-year-old who comes home to find a large toy tollbooth sitting in his room. Joining forces with a watchdog named Tock, Milo drives through the tollbooth's gates and begins a memorable journey. He meets such characters as the foolish, yet lovable Humbug, the Mathemagician, and the not-so-wicked "Which," Faintly Macabre, who gives Milo the "impossible" mission of returning two princesses to the Kingdom of Wisdom.

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