We did it! Our very first book together. Not so bad was it?
After scaling the mountains of Ignorance, protecting their senses from the Senses Taker, our heros narrowly escape the demons and reach the Castle in the Sky. Princesses Rhyme and Reason are there as if they’ve been expecting them all along. And poor Milo, exhausted and dejected apologizes for taking too long and for making so many mistakes. But our beloved princesses, in all their wisdom reassure him, “whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more.” Isn’t that the loveliest thing you’ve ever heard! They tell him that small steps towards bigger things are always worthwhile. And while he’s not perfect, Milo has a lifetime of adventure ahead. Rhyme and Reason think he’ll get the handle of appling what he learns, what do you think?
It’s been sixty years since the book came out and is regarded as one of the best in children’s literature. But that wasn’t always the case. Back when The Phantom Tollbooth was first published in 1961, people had a lot of doubts that it would do well. The book was often criticized for being “too difficult for children.” At that time, everyone was writing down to children. Meaning writers were trying to make things simple because they didn’t think young readers could handle anything other than that. The author, Norton Juster remembers, “Everyone said this is not a children’s book, the vocabulary is much too difficult, the wordplay and the punning they will never understand, and anyway fantasy is bad for children because it disorients them.” Isn’t that crazy? It was precisely this thinking that got this book BANNED from libraries. Grown ups at the time thought all this imaginative thinking was dangerous.
That quote from Norton Juster was taken from a fantastic article on the book by the writer Adam Gopnik, which you can read here in the 2011 issue of The New Yorker. Gopnik says in the article, “What Milo discovers is that math and literature, Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, should assume their places not under the pentagon of Purpose and Power but under the presidency of Rhyme and Reason. Learning isn’t a set of things that we know but a world that we enter.” Basically he’s saying that learning shouldn’t be something you are forced to do, or facts to memorize. But rather a journey you go on and a way to enrich your imaginative worlds as well as the real one.
If you’d like more on the author and illustrator of this book, there is a pretty cool 5 minute clip about them on the 50th anniversary of the book. You learn some insider info like how the illustrator did not want to have the armies of wisdom riding on horses, but on cats! I really hope you enjoyed this book. It’s fun and strange with a beautiful, enduring message.
Your final reading questions:
Easy-
What does Milo say to convince the Mathemagician?
What does he give Milo as a gift?
What words are used to describe the bird they meet?
"But there's so much to learn," how does Rhyme respond to this?
What was the thing the Kings waited until Milo returned to tell him?
Harder-
Why does the Tedium call Milo’s pencil the dreaded useless staff?
How did the pencil help Milo in the instance?
Why doesn’t the giant want to help rescue the princesses?
This story is a little dated, what would a 21st century Senses Taker have Milo look at to distract him?
Why didn’t the Kings tell Milo the rescue was impossible BEFORE he left?
How long was Milo gone for and how is that possible?
Hardest-
All the demons in the mountains seem to want to distract Milo. Why is distraction a bad thing? In this case and other cases?
What is the significance of the battle?
How do you imagine this journey will affect Milo in the years to come?
I’d love it if you share this post with a fellow reader/writer.
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