Friday, April 4, 2014

38:120 The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster

Second time reading this one, this time with the youngest who is 8.  Here's my previous review:

Milo is bored.  School is boring, home is boring, his toys are boring, everything is boring...even that mysterious box that shows up in his bedroom with a strange tollbooth in it.  But what he finds on the other side of that tollbooth is anything but boring.  A whole new world opens up before him: one where you eat your own words,  can collect sounds in a bottle, a symphony colors the world, and a little boy must rescue Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason from the Castle in the Air with the help of a watchdog named Tock and a Humbug.

One of those timeless children's classics that I somehow never got around to reading when I was actually a child.  I decided to rectify that by doing a novel study with Jon.  He was reluctant at first but after the first few chapters, we were both hooked.  A lovely book that takes so much of what we say figuratively and literally turns it upon itself but in the end you learn that so many things are possible so long as you don't know they are impossible.

Since this was an assigned read, Nick just went along with it and he was a bit bored by the beginning but within a few chapters he was talking to me about what was happening and it was never an issue when I told him it was time to do his reading.  Many times, he would read the next day's chapter as well to see what would happen next.  It truly is a lovely book with some wonderful words of wisdom scattered throughout.

Page count: 256p/9,293p ytd/190,285p lifetime

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