The Phantom Tollbooth at 51

One of my favorite books of all time, The Phantom Tollbooth, the novel by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, celebrates its 51st birthday this year. It is fitting that I am writing to mark its 51st birthday, rather than its 50th because the book itself is a celebration of the unusual in the usual.

I have loved this book since I first read it in the 3rd grade and have read it multiple times since then, getting just as much joy out of it (perhaps even more) at 40 as I did at 8. Children and adults alike can relate to Milo’s sense of dissatisfaction and boredom and his joy and wonder at arriving in the Kingdom of Wisdom, a land where the most ordinary of things becomes extraordinary. As a child, I loved, and took great comfort in, the explanations of the commonplace – a symphony director who choreographs the sunset instead of music, a woman who catalogs all sounds, and the Official Which who chooses which words to say when. When I was older, I appreciated even more the irony and clever wordplay, recognizing all too well the Demon of Insincerity, Threadbare Excuse and Everpresent Word Snatcher.

But what I love most about this book, what draws me to read it again and again and suggest it to everyone, young and old, is its message that the world is a funny and wonderful place and that I need to remember to stop, look around, and experience it….and who doesn’t need a reminder about that from time to time?

~Lupine M., Central Library