#11 in Adventure
The Phantom Tollbooth
- 256
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- Film 1970
- On screen
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Our view
Almost everything in “The Phantom Tollbooth” runs on language: idioms taken literally and puns stacked on puns. Its hero, a bored boy, discovers on the way that learning can be an adventure. The wordplay is the delight of this children’s fantasy and, for some readers, at times too much of a good thing. Under the fun sit some sound thoughts about ignorance and knowledge. Adults enjoy it too.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's fantasy novel written by Norton Juster, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, first published in 1961. The story follows a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth that transports him to the once prosperous, but now troubled, Kingdom of Wisdom. Along with a dog named Tock and the Humbug, Milo goes on a quest to the Castle in the Air seeking the kingdom's two exiled princesses, named Rhyme and Reason. As Milo learns valuable lessons, he finds a love of learning in a story full of puns and wordplay, such as exploring the literal meanings of idioms.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- FilmThe Phantom TollboothIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.4 across 703 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 83% of the weight and the score stays at 8.3 — the Adventure average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.3 | 106 | 15% |
| Hardcover | 8.4 | 597 | 85% |
Frequently asked
What age is The Phantom Tollbooth for?
The Phantom Tollbooth sits on the Children shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 5–10. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 256 pages — shorter than 97% of the ranked books in Adventure.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Adventure — with scores between 7.2 and 8.2, closest to this book.
