This is Awesome.

While re reading The Phantom Tollbooth, I really learned to appreciate Norton Juster's play on words and his wordplay. His writing really makes you think hard and his ideas are right on. I looked for book reviews on The Phantom Tollbooth and found that most felt the same way about Norton Juster's writing craft as I. Although I did find one that got me really mad. I totally disagreed upon every aspect and criticism about the book. 


In Steven Wu's review (http://www.scwu.com/bookreviews/h/JusterNortonPhantomTollboothThe.shtml) about the Phantom Tollbooth, he refers to Norton Juster's use of words and craft as a joke. One of his examples I completely disagreed on was that the book just floats with artificial plot devices Norton Juster employs. Honestly, I think this guy has no brain and I don't say this to be mean. It's just that he doesn't look or read beyond what is written. He doesn't read the fine print.


Milo, Tock, and the Humbug escape prison and while yeah, most might think that's cliché in a sense where the hero never loses, but there's more to it than that. On page 78, The Which (not to be confused with a witch) tells them how to escape. She says, "You mustn't take Officer Shrift seriously. He loves to put people in prison, but he doesn't care about keeping them there. Now just press that button in the wall and be on your way."


By this, I got the impression that most people will do a lot of things to feel like they have power yet some will not proceed to enforce the rules. They just enjoy the position of power and feeling like they're all high and mighty. Although Steven Wu did not find this to be clever at all, I thought it was very clever of Norton Juster to make that connection to life.


All in all, researching further did make me understand the ideas in the book more thoroughly because I was standing up for the book which made me think more clearly and it forced me to read the fine print even more. I definitely recommend this book to people of all ages because it has different things we can all learn and as we get older, the ideas become more complex.
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