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the phantom tollbooth

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Illustrated in black-and-white. This ingenious fantasy centers around Milo, a bored ten-year-old who comes home to find a large toy tollbooth sitting in his room. Joining forces with a watchdog named Tock, Milo drives through the tollbooth's gates and begins a memorable journey. He meets such characters as the foolish, yet lovable Humbug, the Mathemagician, and the not-so-wicked "Which," Faintly Macabre, who gives Milo the "impossible" mission of returning two princesses to the Kingdom of Wisdom.　　

The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's adventure novel and a modern fairy tale, written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer. It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do, drives through, only to find himself in the Kingdom of Wisdom. There he accepts a quest to rescue the princesses of the kingdom, acquires two faithful companions, and has many adventures. The book is full of puns, and many events, like Milo's sudden jump to the Island of Conclusions, are the consequences of taking English language idioms literally.

Juster claims his father's fondness for puns and The Marx Brothers' movies were a major influence.The Phantom Tollbooth was an "instant classic" when it was first published in 1961 and has never gone out of print since.Critics have compared it to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland series of books in terms of classic appeal and importance.