book+review+the+phantom+tollbooth

Title: The Phantom Tollbooth Author: Norton Juster Copyright date: 1961 Number of pages: 256

This story is about a young boy named Milo, a watchdog named Tock, a Humbug and many other strange characters. Milo is thin with short hair and is bored with everything around him. Tock is a large dog with a tail, four legs, a head, and a loud alarm clock for a body and hates when people kill time. The Humbug is large and beetle like and wears a lavish coat. Some say that he is very dislikable.

This story takes place in present time. You can tell that is when the story takes place because Milo has a little electronic car and a T.V. This story takes place in many different settings throughout the story. A description of one of the settings is, "Huge wooden- wheeled carts streamed into the market square from the orchards, and long caravans bound for the four corners and ready to leave." pg. 45. Some of the other settings and places are Dictionopolis, Market Place, Digitopolis, and many others. All of these places are very different from eachother.

The major conflict in this story is Milo, Tock, and the Humbug need to rescue Rhyme and Reason so they can regain peace in the land of Knowledge. This is hard because they have to go through many lands with different kinds of demons. The demons try and stop the three from getting to Rhyme and Reason. Milo, Tock, and the Humbug get closer to the two but all the demons are chasing them. Will the three make it? Read the book to find out!

I would recommend this book because it is an adventurous and somewhat educational story. The people I would recommend this book to are people who like strange and adventurous stories. The age group I would recommend this book to is ten and up because it has an advanced vocabulary. The genre of this story is fantasy.