Wednesday, November 2, 2011

YOU CAN NEVER JUMP AWAY FROM CONCLUSIONS: Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth is fifty years old.

20 comments:

  1. I still love that book. My favorite part: the car that goes without saying.

    ReplyDelete
  2. lisased10:40 AM

    I handed that book to my daughter a few years ago. She regularly rereads it. I should get a copy for my Kindle.

    Another favorite kids' book that was born today? The Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), by Ellen Raskin. I checked out a copy of that book from the hometown library and discovered that it was the same first edition that I read when I was 8. Same cover, same rough edges, same page where someone had underlined pertinent clues. Alas, the librarian would not let me buy it off of her, even when I told her it was published the same day I was born.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nowhereman10:41 AM

    They just published a nice 50th Anniversary hardcover edition with a bunch of "what this book means to me" editorials at the end from authors like Chabon, etc.

    I must have read this and the Pushcart War books hundreds of times as a kid.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marsha11:27 AM

    First of all, happy birthday lisased!

    I didn't read Phantom Tollbooth as a kid - who knows why. I read it for the first time just this year, and I suspect I'd have loved it as a child, whereas discovering it now, it's a little too twee.

    But oh, how I love Ellen Raskin! The Westing Game is still my favorite book, but I dearly, dearly loved Leon (I Mean Noel) as well. Her others are not up to the same level, but those two will always number among the best books I've ever read.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I, too, had never read Phantom Tollbooth as a child, but my daughter had to read it as part of her summer assignments this year, and while I laughed all the way through it, my daughter just did not enjoy it.  I think it was the part about the math that got her, because she struggles with math, bless her.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I also missed Phantom Tollbooth as a child (not a surprise, since I read everything Marsha did, just a few years later), but it was my husband's favorite book and probably still is. (Just as mine was and still is The Westing Game. These things must be genetic.)  A few years ago, my husband introduced me to the book by reading it to me a chapter at a time at bedtime, which was a great way to experience it.  We also named our cats after favorite fictional characters, and he named one Milo, from that book. (My choice was Scout, after To Kill a Mockingbird. But I seriously considered "Turtle" for Turtle Wexler.  Too bad it was a black cat and just didn't fit.)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Genevieve3:41 PM

    The glub-blubs! Pomato soup!  "In Pomato, in Pomato, you will find no meat . . . "

    ReplyDelete
  8. When my husband & I discovered my uterus contained a sausage fest at 16 weeks, we agreed he would get to name Twin A and I would get to name Twin B.

    Twin B is Milo. He lives in New York. Thus far he has never been lost in the doldrums.

    ReplyDelete
  9. FYI Grunt is Kate. It's the only way I can post from my phone.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Genevieve4:04 PM

    Love the word-pictures so much (examples here:  http://quirkybird.livejournal.com/607956.html)

    Happy birthday, lisased!

    ReplyDelete
  11. bristlesage4:50 PM

    A little piece by Juster about the book

    I was given The Phantom Toolbooth by good family friends, dayenu, but they also introduced me to the Little House books.  And A Wrinkle in Time.  That's a damn fine track record.

    ReplyDelete
  12. bristlesage4:52 PM

    I've always loved the orchestra that plays all the colors. 

    ReplyDelete
  13. Christy in Philly5:29 PM

    I remember my sister and I taking turns reading chapters of The Phantom Tollbooth out loud to each other. I gave it to her son as a gift a few years ago. Love!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Professor Jeff5:36 PM

    There was a wonderful recent piece in the New Yorker on The Phantom Tollbooth, with Juster and Feiffer telling marvelous stories about the book's creation and legacy.

    Inspired in part by that article, I pulled down our copy a couple of weeks ago and asked the kids if they wanted to do a family reading of it -- a chapter or two each night at bedtime, with each of us reading aloud a page or so and then passing it on. It's been great fun for all of us: our 12-year-old son, who's recalling how much he loved the book when we first read it with him years ago; our 9-yeard-old daughter, who's delightedly discovering it for the first time; and my wife and me, who are remembering all of the fantastic characters, creative wordplay, and heartfelt sentiments.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Philomena8:19 PM

    The time I found a signed mint copy of The Phantom Tollbooth for $1 in a bookstore in Amherst, MA,  remains one of the happiest single moments of my life.

    ReplyDelete
  16. lisased9:44 PM

    The word pictures! It's good to see them again. Thanks Genevieve!

    ReplyDelete
  17. lisased9:50 PM

    I just came back from a family vacation where I talked up A Wrinkle in Time and The Westing Game to a nephew. His mom was lamenting that he wouldn't read anything. A few words about time and space travel, murder, puzzles, and a treasure hunt, and he was sold. I plan on sending him When You Reach Me for Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  18. <span>I loved </span>The Phantom Tollbooth<span>, but this weekend i was having conversations with several friends about The Chronicles of Prydain (</span>The Book of Three<span>, </span>Black Cauldron<span>, etc.). I promptly ordered the first in the series for my Kindle.</span>

    ReplyDelete
  19. Emily W8:52 AM

    Not only do I love the book, but Tollbooth was my school play in 7th grade! (Cedarbrook MS in Wyncote) I wasn't in the play, but on the stage crew, and one of the things I got to do was bake cookies for the edible letters/words!

    ReplyDelete
  20. bristlesage9:09 AM

    Awesome work! 

    I made my husband read The Westing Game for the first time a couple of years back.  It is now on the list of books we'll be giving our nieces and nephews when they're old enough.

    ReplyDelete