Customer Reviews
An Overlooked Classic 
2008-08-04
This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. I never heard of it growing up, and my parents were diligent in providing us with the classics. Even today most of the customers in my bookstore don't know it exists. This is a crime, because it belongs right up there with Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows. It's a fantasy about a bored little boy who gets into a magic car and goes through the phantom tollbooth into a land of adventure. He must rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason to restore order to the kingdom. It is chock full of extremely clever puns, because in this world things are really taken literally. You can eat your own words, visit the Island of Conclusions (which can only be reached by jumping to it) and so many more that I won't spoil it by telling you about them. I often found myself laughing out loud. Sure, it's considered a children's book and kids love it, but don't let that put you off if you're an adult. It's timeless, and everyone can enjoy it. A friend who's a librarian recommended it to me, and I'll be forever grateful!
The point is to learn how to think 2008-07-30
"Can you help me?"
"Help you! You must help yourself," the dog replied, carefully winding himself with his left hind leg. "I suppose you know why you got stuck."
"I guess I just wasn't thinking," said Milo.
"PRECISELY," shouted the dog as his alarm went off again. "Now you know what you must do."
"I'm afraid I don't," admitted Milo, feeling quite stupid.
"Well," continued the watchdog impatiently, "since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."
A fun book! (review by Harry, a 9 year old boy) 2008-07-19
A very very good book. In the book, everything is basically literal. For example, the dog, shown on the front cover, named Tock, is a literal "watch dog". A very funny part is where the main characters, Milo and Tock, are in Dictionopolis and they meet the King of Dictionopolis' cabinet. When the Earl (from the Cabinet) said something was "as easy as falling off a log" he actually fell off a log himself. I think that if he had said "easy as pie", a pie would have splatted in his face. Ptbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb!!
I think it's also very funny when all three, Milo, Tock, and the Humbug, who Milo and Tock met in Dictionopolis, "jumped to Conclusions", literally. They landed on the island named Conclusions, which was about a mile offshore. They had to swim all the way back through the Sea of Knowledge. This book made me laugh a lot. I read it more than once and I recommend it for children from Third Grade to High School.
Enjoying the PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH: now and forever. 2008-06-18
At first, I simply enjoyed it as a kid.
Later on, as a teen, I looked for it when I was...bored.
Now, I have this book on my shelf, waiting for me (and my nephew, when he's old enough). Except that I find its characters always popping up in the back of my mind.
Those of you that didn't enjoy it: it's okay. Still, the whole point of the book is less about the "incorrect" math problems, lousy puns and nonsensical turns of phrase...and more about seeing life with new eyes.
In any case, come back to it again later.
As time grew on, Jules Feiffer's drawings seemed too sketchy; but when perusing these reviews, I realized that this was the point. For someone who enjoys seeing books as "brain movies" (like me), the last thing I want is a reading book with rich illustrations. (For that, I'll read a comic book.) Just simple, basic illustrations: boy, dog w/watch body, the Trivium. These are sketches. We, the readers, get to cast the kid actor; create the character design based LOOSELY on the story art.(Animation fan, too).
I'll probably read it later tonight.
Fantastic Book 2008-06-17
Reviewed by my 5th grade daughter:
I had to read this book for a fifth grade project. Every day we read a little bit more, and every day when I came home, I told my Mom how much fun I was having reading it and what a great book it was. So, at the next book fair our school had, I bought the book for our whole family.
The book was hilarious and was just way interesting.
The Phantom Tollbooth 2008-05-30
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.
WOW...W-O-W... 2008-05-25
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...
Cute read 
2008-04-30
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.
Don't listen to them! Math is fun! 2008-04-22
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.
the best book ever 2008-03-07
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.
