Rating: 
Summary: The Best Book
Review: Phantom Tollbooth
Norton Justin
September 20, 2002 The Phantom Tollbooth is a great book by Norton Justin. In it Milo, a boy who doesn't appreciate life and does absolutely nothing, gets a box with a strange letter on it. Inside he finds a tollbooth which will take him to a new world and change his life forever. He goes on many adventures in the new world, and meets many friends. He meets a watchdog named Tock who is a dog with a body of a clock and only goes tick, tick, and tick. Milo also meets Humbug a coward who nobody likes. Humbug was ordered by the king of Dictionopolis to help Milo on his journey. The author teaches you various lessons in humorous ways like to look in different perspectives. One of my favorite events is when Milo meets the Sound Keeper who prevents sound from entering a valley. The people of the valley needed one sound to load their cannon with. Milo goes into the fort to retrieve a sound but almost fails. He had an idea to say a word and trap it in his mouth. It worked, and thanks to Milo they destroyed the fort. Milo is my favorite character because he is a lot like me. He is never does anything and gets bored all the time. My favorite passage in this book is, "To an ant I look like a giant and to a giant I look like a midget it all depends on your perspective." I think everyone should look at things from a different perspective. This is a great book and I think it teaches some valuable lessons. If you like adventures you would love this book because Milo goes on a long journey and under goes many tasks. Also if you like fantasies I would recommend this book because Milo travels in a world called the Land of Expectations where nothing is the same as real life. One example is letters grow on trees. Also numbers are dug up from mines. Everybody should read this book because the lesson I learned in this book made me a better person.
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: For some reason, it always surprises me when kids say they like this book. I think of some of the humor in it as being too sophisticated for them. But I enjoyed it. I like the playing with mathematical concepts, the puns, the droll dream-like characteristics of some of the situations. There is also a movie of the same name, which I enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: Phantom Tollbooth is the best book ever!
Review: The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, is an excellent book for any age. It is about a boy, who is about 10-years-old, named Milo. He is bored with his life and one day when he comes home from school there is a rather humungous package in his room. When he opens it, he finds a tollbooth. Milo assembles the tollbooth and decides to give it a try. By pressing the "go" button, it sends him off into a wonderful land of words, numbers, other odds and ends, and the castle in the air. It exquisite details and a daring adventure into the unknown. I rated this book a 5 star for those reasons. By coincidence, I am reading this book in school for the 2nd time! Norton Juster is a great writer and I'm eager to read his other books!
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Book for Many Years
Review: I read the Phantom Tollbooth as a child and loved it. I loved the story of Milo, a kid who is bored and dislikes life who receives a gift completely out of the blue (what kid wouldn't like that). I liked the fact that the gift was a gateway to an adventure in another world. I liked the dog he meets who is gruff at first but becomes Milo's best friend. I also loved the strange characters Milo met on his adventures, and I was scared of the monsters he met near the end of the book. As I grew older, I started to learn all of the puns and double meanings strewn throughout the book. I still loved the adventure story, but now I began realizing that the book was very funny as well. During some move or other, I lost the book, but now I look forward to buying it when I have kids and rediscovering the world Norton Juster painted in the Phantom Tollbooth with them.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Mixed Bag -- Really Misses Its Potential...
Review: In writing this review, I can't help being reminded of a passage out of C. S. Lewis' "Prince Caspian" -- namely, the single combat. The Bulgy Bear sits at one corner, sucking its paws and looking silly; at the other corner, the centaur Glenstorm paws at the ground imposingly. Such a mixed reaction surely sums up my response to this book! It is galling to have to criticize a book which so many other people have so highly praised; but then, I must say what I think is true. And the truth, as I see it, is that "The Phantom Tollbooth" is a book which simply misses its potential. Frankly, I have some VERY mixed feelings about "The Phantom Tollbooth". It certainly BEGINS promisingly enough, starting off in true "Fairy-Tale" fashion -- a mundane setting (an ordinary boy living in an ordinary city and in an ordinary apartment building) which quickly turns to a fantastic setting -- a strange, Wonderland-type world filled with odd creatures and even odder experiences. A promising beginning, indeed! But although the book is very witty, it is also extremely silly. I must suppose that Norton Juster (the author) thought that he was being FUNNY. Maybe he was; but there IS such a thing as "too much", and this is, alas, a boundary which he crosses far too soon. This is tragic, because the book manages, in certain places, to be quite profound, and even downright allegorical. For example, when Milo et al. swim back from the Isle of Conclusions (to which they have inopportunely Jumped), they all emerge soaking wet, except for The Humbug. A quick glance at the map printed on the endpapers reveals that the body of water that they have just crossed is nothing more or less than a branch of the Sea of Knowledge -- allegorically, therefore, their "being soaked" (i.e., having "absorbed knowledge") simply means that they have learned from the experience. On the other hand, The Humbug (who, you will remember, comes out "perfectly dry") has learned nothing whatsoever! Unfortunately, such brilliance is horribly overshadowed.... The endless cliches and repeated wordplays soon descend, first to farce, and then to idiocy. (The Spelling Bee reminds me of those stupid "Lingo" commercials on The Game Show Network.) The book DOES have an important message to convey, but I found it VERY hard to take seriously, or to have much respect for, a book which clearly had so low an opinion of itself. The younger children, of course, won't notice this; and if you're an older child in a mood for farce, you'll find this a VERY entertaining tale; but if you are (like me) an older reader of a more thoughtful stripe, you'll soon find this book very wearisome reading. A waste of good potential, indeed! (Sorry!) :(
Rating:
Summary: Take an adventure inside your own imagination
Review: I read this book as a child, and very happily reorded it when a memory of it surfaced. The plot is as excellent as I remembered it. A young boy named Milo finds the entire world to be completely uninteresting, and he's already bored, cyncial and jaded, despite the fact that he can't be more than 12 years old. Somebody gives him a way to explore, and he's off to a fantastic land of imagination in his little electric car. Once there, he finds that knowledge and thought have become personified. He encounters cities of words and numbers, a woman who guards and saves sounds, he literally jumps to Conclusions, takes a swim in the sea of knowledge. The main plot involves Milo and some assorted friends (my favorite is the watch-dog Tock, who has a real watch on him, but then I've always loved dogs) rescuing two princesses who are trapped in the Mountains of Ignorance. Milo must battle all of the demons that plauge goodness and knowledge to accomplish his goal. Along the way, he discovers that he and the world are much more interesting and exciting than he thought. Besides that, another little gem is hidden in here. Life is not just about learning and pursuing knowledge. There are many varities and experiences out there. Math, science, art, history and so on. The key is not just learning about them, but learning how to balance them so that they all work together to make us better people. Milo got the message in the end, and I hope that more follow in his footsteps. This book is written on a children's level, but the author never talks down to kids or patronizes them. It's a pleasant read for all ages. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I liked this book. It is about Milo. He drives through a tollbooth that appears in his room. It was exciting to read. I liked it because it like a never ending adventure until you finish reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Timeless classic for all ages
Review: I first read this book over thirty years ago, at the age of seven. I enjoyed it very much, and every time I've read it since, I find something I missed. Milo, a VERY bored kid, finds a tollbooth in his bedroom one day, and drives through in his toy car. He soon meets Tock, the watch dog complete with giant size watch faces on back, and is entrusted with a mission--to rescue the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air. But there's a lot of detours to go through before he gets there . . . An absolute delight, filled with puns and plays on words. Varying ages will get more or fewer of the jokes. All the same, Milo has some serious lessons to learn, as does the reader. A fun book, that will add to kids' (and maybe adults'!) vocabulary and grasp of concepts, in the most delightful way.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book
Review: I read this book last April. From the start I thought it was very creative and I admired Norton Juster's clever use of words. I'm not sure why, but most of the kids in my class hated this book. I think that it is pretty good. I'm beginning to believe there is something wrong with my class-they liked The House of Dies Drear more than this book! (Ugh, I personally believe The House of Dies Drear is one of the worst books I have ever read) They also said that The Phantom Tollbooth was boring, but I think it is far from that! My main complaint about this book is that Milo didn't really show much of his personality throughout the story, only in the beginning and end. Basically, the character development was poor. But I guess that's okay, because this book wasn't intended to be very serious or well developed. It just wanted to be fun, and I think it was an enjoyable read. I would recommend this book for students in grades 3-6, but all ages can like it.
Rating:
Summary: Teriffic is the only word for it!
Review: This book is about a boy named Milo who gets an unusual tollbooth. He also gets a map. He wishes to go to a place on the map and he gets to a place that's near it. He also gets a rule book. First he goes to Dictionopolis where he finds a word market and meets a "Humbug" and a "Spelling Bee!" But before that, he gets stuck in the Doldrums because he didn't think. He met some little multi colored people who say "No thinking in the Doldrums!" There is also a "watchdog" who makes sure no one wastes time. Together they go on a long exciting journey to the Castle in the Air. On the way, they have to go through the Valley of Sound and Digitopolis and the Mountains of Ignorance. I think that this book is teriffic!
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