The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth was a fun read. It was fairly quick to read. It helped that nearly every other page had a picture on it. For my little brain, that made it a quick read. It reminded me of an Alice and Wonderland type of book. Sort of whimsical and creative. On the cover for instance, is one of the main characters. It’s a dog with a watch attached to him. He’s the “watchdog”! Or the Island of Conclusions; the only way you get there is by jumping to a conclusion. Little things like that which are quirky and clever made the book enjoyable to read as an adult.

Takeaways

While reading this, I kept thinking about how many nuggets of wisdom were in there. Things that I couldn’t really tell any of my sons, but if they read the book they might catch on. There were demons where their main purpose was to keep you from reaching a castle for instance. They would trick you into doing mundane things so you would be distracted so you never end up reaching it. They give you a purpose in something worthless, so you don’t pursue a worth while purpose.

Another big takeaway I got from this book is that curiosity is important. The main character couldn’t have continued on with his mission if he wasn’t curious and asked the right questions. He went from an apathetic character to a boy with a purpose. That came from his questions, curiosity and his willingness to help.

Verdict

Read the book. It’s quality to length ratio is great. It’s a good book that happens to be short and to the point. That makes it a win win. If you don’t love it, you wasted a week or less reading it!

With it being a short book, it gets a short review. There are a lot of quotable parts to it, and a lot of wisdom sprinkled inside a short book. I promise, you won’t waste your time reading this book.