Expectations is a place...
Monday August 25, 2008
Number and words and whatever comes in between...The Phantom Tollbooth is a modern fairy tale--famous for its wordplay and witty interplay. Instead of a wardrobe or a looking glass, young Milo travels to the Kingdom of Wisdom through a magic tollbooth, where he must make sense of a war between the people of words (from Dictionopolis) and the people of numbers (from Digitoplis). In The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster writes: "Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not."
Have you read The Phantom Tollbooth? What did you think? Are there other books with which you would compare it? And, there's something else... when you looked at the cover, and/and or read about the book, what did you expect? Does the cover art ever influence your choice in books?
Cover Art © Random House.
Comments
What a great, inspirational quote from what sounds like a fabulous book! I’m anxious to get a copy of _The Phantom Tollbooth_ from my library. Thanks for the recommendation!!
I LOVE the Phantom Tollbooth. This was one of my favorite books as a kid, and I’d say it still is. I reread it every five years or so and it still speaks to me about the power of imagination and how clever our language can be.
I didn’t buy it for the cover, but I do love the drawings in this book, too. This is a great one for encouraging a love of reading in a child, or bringing a bit of childlike wonder to a grownup. Might be time to read it again…