Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?

“There once was a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself – not just sometimes, but always.”

Milo always longs to be somewhere else. He’s bored in school and longs to be home, but then when he gets home he wants to be somewhere else. Nothing is ever really interesting until one day he receives a mystery package containing one (1) phantom tollbooth. Milo sets up the tollbooth, gathers the change and then charges up his little electric car and drives through into a completely new world.

“Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?”

Here he gets lost in the doldrums, he meets Tock, the ticking watchdog and visits Dictionopolis. He visits the market where words are sold and lands himself in jail. Here he learns that not everything is as it seems, there is a dischord in the kingdom ever since the princesses Rhyme and Reason were banished to the Castle in the Air.

“Whether or not you find your own way, you’re bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it’s quite rusty.”

The Phantom Tollbooth is a whimsical book that takes everything in the world and looks at it from a new light, from literally tasting soup to running up the flight of stairs that leads to infinity“(It is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet”). It’s delightfully playful book that will have you laughing, thinking about your life and how we makes mistakes. But most importantly it offers you a way to fix them.

“… what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.”

CBR10 Bingo: throwback thursday. This is and always will be my favourite book. Whenever the world falls apart I’ll always rescue Rhyme and Reason with Milo.