Review of: The Phantom Tollbooth

Any kid who enjoyed reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and/or The Oz Series will likely adore this book, as I did myself.  If you're familiar with them, it ends up being like a mixture of the two, borrowing Wonderland's craziness at every corner and set up to tell an epic tale like in Oz.  I'm absolutely crazy about both of them so reading The Phantom Tollbooth was quite a treat.  It had its own world and characters, but the type of fantasy and style of writing was oh, so familiar.  There's no doubt in me that it was influenced by at least one of the two.

There's one word that comes to mind when someone mentions this book: wordplay.  It's STUFFED with wordplay, every page, every chapter, that's most of what you'll find.  And I found it hilarious actually.  There's two princesses named Rhyme and Reason, a king of the alphabet named Azza, a math king called the Mathemagician, a literal sea of knowledge, an island called Conclusions (that people jump to) a bleak place called the Doldrums (where nothing happens), and that's all I'm going to list because there's just too many.

The plot, you say? That's not what makes this book special. pfft.  Go read a Wikipedia article if you want to know the plot.  Let's speak of more important things such as

"He was beautifully dressed with a well-pressed shirt and tie. His shoes were polished, his nails were clean, his hat was well brushed, and a white handkerchief adorned his breast pocket. But his expression was somewhat blank. In fact, it was completely blank, for he had neither eyes, nose, nor mouth."

That is Slender Man, a new thriller star and internet meme.  The Terrible Trivium in The Phantom Tollbooth looks exactly the same.  I gasped out loud when I saw the picture and then I read his description and, well... That's Slender Man alright.

It turned out a lot of things in the book reminded me of characters and, shall we say, stuff from popular media.  It goes to show that this was either a ridiculously popular book that many artists were influenced by, or our generation is getting weirder by the decade.  Not that I'm complaining.  A book without a twisty reality can only keep my interest for so long.  I'm lucky there's so much creative fiction out there or I'd be lost.  I'd probably hate writing too.
~~~~
As much as I loved reading the book, I seriously didn't understand the ending.  It was one of those classic "oh it's so good to be home again!" endings that I'm used to getting from these types of stories.  Not saying it was bad, but really? Milo's journey to a faraway land greater than his own made him like his own land better upon return? I would want to stay in that magical land if I were him. Oh well. Life is pretty great, I suppose.

Stars: * * * * *
(I felt this book deserved a star rating)