- a boy who thinks everything is boring has his life dramatically changed
- entering another world full of perils, dangers, fears & victories, he gains deep friendships and a better outlook of our beautiful world
- magic and evil creatures*
- language: x1 “stupid”
Type: chapter book
Ages: 7-12
Author: Norton Juster
Illustrator: Jules Feiffer
*Regarding the evil creatures (most often called “demons”), we don’t encounter them till closer to the end of the book (but they are alluded to throughout). Turns out, the “demons,” who all have their own particular ugly appearances, have titles such as “demon of insincerity” or “senses taker.” They are all entities of distraction–bad character traits personified. If you would like to see the whole list of them, scroll down to the bottom. This might be good for a parent who won’t be reading it before their child does, but if you’re planning on reading aloud (or pre-reading), I’d recommend not scrolling, because the story is more fun that way. 🙂
Speaking of reading aloud, this was not my favorite. It didn’t flow as well aloud as I would have liked, but can absolutely be done. We got through it, and my children probably didn’t even notice.
Honestly, this book hovered at a 3 (out of 5) for me for a good majority of the book. The last maybe 20%, though, upped my rating. I’m pretty sure it would have been consistently higher throughout had I been reading it to myself. Through the author’s incredible wit and wordplays, he managed to craftily insert all sorts of life lessons. Here are just a couple:
- “You must never feel badly about making mistakes as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”
- “…you had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do…as you’ve discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.”
This adventure greatly awakened the boy to the beauty of his own world, with endless possibilities for creativity, learning and imagination. It’d be a good read for your upper elementary or middle grades!
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Demons mentioned in “The Phantom Tollbooth”
- “Terrible Trivium” – demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, monster of habit
- “Demon of Insincerity” – he doesn’t mean what he says, he doesn’t mean what he does, and doesn’t mean what he is
- “Gelatinous Giant” – no shape of his own, copies whatever he’s near, hates to be conspicuous, afraid of everything, can’t give straight answers, changes are frightening
- “Senses Taker” – helps people find what they’re NOT looking for, hear what they’re NOT listening for, run after what they’re NOT chasing, and smell what isn’t even there…steals your sense of purpose, takes your sense of duty, destroys your sense of proportion
- “Demons of Compromise” – agreeing with both parties, never really doing what they wanted, rarely get anywhere at all
- “Horrible Hopping Hindsight” – invariably leaps before looking, never cares about where he’s going as long as he knows why he shouldn’t have gone to where he’d been
- “Gorgons of Hate and Malice” – leaving a trail of slime behind them and moving much more quickly than you’d think
- “Overbearing Know-it-all” – talking continuously, ready at a moment’s notice to offer misinformation on any subject
- “Gross Exaggeration” – mangles the truth
- “Threadbare Excuse” – mumbles the same thing over and over again, making excuses and blaming others