The time has come for Max and I to bond over one of my absolute favorite books in the world. Max cackles as he reads it, and I find myself begging him to tell him which part he's reading. For the podcast today, Max is reading aloud Chapter 1 from the book- it's a bad recording because you can hear my typing click-click as he reads. So..... I might try to re-record it if Max is game. But here it is, in alls its ambient distraction, for now. Just click on the image below to listen.
Norton Juster shares three minutes of insight into his own childhood and inspirations for The Phantom Tollbooth in this episode of All Things Considered. He explains why his book was not entirely well-recieved by the pedagogy of the day:
Not everyone in the publishing world of the 1960s embracedThe Phantom Tollbooth. Many said that it was not a children's book, the vocabulary was much too difficult, and the ideas were beyond kids. To top it off, they claimed fantasy was bad for children because it disorients them.
The prevailing wisdom of the time held that learning should be more accessible and less discouraging. The aim was that no child would ever have to confront anything that he or she didn't already know.
But my feeling is that there is no such thing as a difficult word. There are only words you don't know yet — the kind of liberating words that Milo encounters on his adventure.
More to explore:
Phantom Tollbooth Interactive Story (Wayback Archive)
Excerpts from the story (B's Page)
Book Report Form (EdHelper)
Discussion questions (Literary Link)
Characters (Sparknotes)
