Book Den has the best explanation/summary of The Phantom Tollbooth that I've ever seen. (hat tip Candlestring via G.K.C.'s Favourite).
I have to admit that I haven't yet enjoyed this as an adult, though many details stick with me from multitudinous childhood readings. John (who never read it as a child) has read it aloud to our children and several of them have read it themselves too. Now I realize how very important it is for me to pull it out again for myself. :)
6 comments:
I just found this in hardcover (with library plastic covering!) at the used bookstore and re-read it. Extremely enjoyable. I first read it in the third grade (I think) and images from it have remained with me ever since. I wonder if my four-year-old would get much from it if I read it aloud to her?
I think quite a bit of the imagery would make it interesting for young children. I have some children who would have loved it at that age and some that wouldn't.
I couldn't find our copy (I know it's here somewhere - honestly I don't usually have this much trouble putting my finger on one of our books), so I checked it out of the library and we started reading it aloud tonight. We'll probably finish the whole thing tomorrow - it's going so fast and is even more delightful than I remembered. (Let's just say that last time I read this book I didn't understand the significance of calling creatures Lethargarians).
The understanding among my younger ones was better than I expected, but my four year old was already asleep when we started.
One thing struck us blog nerds as funny (including several of my children) in our modern world. Milo is wandering around a Word Market in Dictionopolis when one of the king's advisers tried to explain their important role...
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"Our job," said the count, "is to see that all the words sold are proper ones, for it wouldn't do to sell someone a word that had no meaning or didn't exist at all. For instance, if you bought a word like ghlbtsk, where would you it?"
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Milo had a very sensible answer, but we were thinking "word verification" (see what you've started, Dr. Thursday?).
We love Phantom Tollbooth as well!
And it seems so appropriate that I now must type in Pijgig in order to post this comment .... :-)
Yes, hee hee, word verification.
As you might expect, Chesterton explains this. The mystery is the same as that of the ... but I had better post this on my own blogg. After Mass. (That will give you some time to think about it, and me too.)
And to get this in, I have to type izcjppzt, which sounds like something the "Awful Dynne" might like to hear. What a GREAT book.
I shouldn't just "jump to conclusions" but I think we might do a group study of it, combining our various talents - it's worth the effort!
Oooh, I love the group study idea. I wonder what sort of format would work to do that? I'm still thinking about The Idea of the University too.
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