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Title: The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition
Series: ——
Author: Norton Juster
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Children’s Fiction
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
| Synopsis: |
Milo is a discontented, bored little boy. Until one day he gets a tollbooth and goes on an adventure to rescue the Princesses Rhyme and Reason. With his friends Tock the Watch-Dog and the Humbug, Milo will learn the importance of words and numbers and just how they can affect everything.
Milo completes his adventure and once back home realizes just how big of a place our world is and how much there is to do. No more boring days for Milo!
| My Thoughts: |
This is one of those books I read as a kid and that has stuck with me ever since. I couldn’t remember every detail, but the clever word plays and number games always stuck in my head. So when I saw this 50th Anniversary Edition a couple of years ago I had to pick it up. Of course, it’s taken me several years to actually get around to reading it.
It is a children’s book so some things are childish. But even now, I never felt like Juster was trying to talk down to his audience or dumb things down. I enjoyed the heck out of this. I had forgotten just how quickly everything happens. Bam, Bam, Bam.
If you’ve never read this book, I highly recommend you do. It is good even for adults. If you happen to know some kids, I’d even higherly recommend this to them.
This 50th Anniversary Edition had a forward from Maurice Sendak [which was actually from the 35th Anniversary Edition] and several “How the Phantom Tollbooth Affected Me” stories from various people at the end of the book. I wasn’t impressed with Sendak’s blabbing and will definitely be skipping that if I read this again. I WAS looking forward to the various stories at the end, but sadly, I only recognized 1 or 2 names and nobody told a good story. It was all the same “I love it, my children loved it, the dog loved it.” blah, blah, blah. It did make me wonder who all those people were whose names I didn’t recognize. Maybe someday I’ll care enough to look them up, but not now.
To end. The story was fantastic, the addons, ie the forward and the stories at the end, not so much. Ignore those, read the story and have a wonderful time! I’m giving it my “best book of the year” tag as well.
★★★★★
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
I need to read this sometime. Loved the animated movie as a kid, and actually I just bought it on DVD recently.
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What?! Is NOTHING sacred? A movie?
I’m dying here…
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Hey, it was a good movie!
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Well, based on the material it had to work with, it had better have been a good movie 😀
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My daughters have both read this book numerous times. It had to be cleaned off the table last night before supper 🙂
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Xeleison, I’ve been assuming that your initials are DJ, mainly because “xeleison” got me to a hslda site.
And today I just realized that I’ve been “assuming”. Have I been assuming wrong?
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I just finished it again this past weekend. It’s remained one of my favorites since my teacher read it to us in fifth grade. I own the 35th anniversary edition (1997!), and I’m looking forward to getting the 50th or some other celebratory edition soon.
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I honestly can’t say that the 50th is worth buying for the “extras”. Unless you are a collector…
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It won’t really be for the extras. My copy is currently falling apart and holding on for dear life. I like collecting books that have a great deal of value to me.
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Well, in that case, BUY away 😀
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Gosh it’s been years since I read this, but I vividly remember loving it. Gonna have to pick it up and I’ll get a copy for my nephews too 😉 and yeah don’t know why they include those quotes at the end, I’d ignore them too, though this edition looks very slick.
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I really do like this edition. Nice clear slipcover over the dustjacket shows off the underlying white and blue of the book itself.
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Yes it’s lovely 🙂
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I loved this book as a kid. I remember reading the one published in 1999 with the wacky colorful cover.
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I read the one with the original blue cover with Milo and Tock on it. It was a very vivid cover even while being extremely simplistic.
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I unfortunately haven’t read it, but that cover tells me I’ve seen it somewhere before… Maybe I did check it out as a kid but just don’t remember anything about it. I’ll definitely add it to my TBR and read it, just like all of Roal Dahl’s books. 😀
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You know, it is very Dahl’ish in tone, just without some of the violence inherent in Dahl’s children’s stories…
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