The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

I finished "The Phantom Tollbooth," by Norton Juster, a while ago, but I've read this book 3 times. I have always really loved it. It's about a boy named Milo who thinks that life is boring and there is never anything to do. Until one day a magical tollbooth shows up in his room, and being to bored to care, he drive through in his toy car and ends up in a whole new world. The character of Milo changes through the book because he realized life is not boring, it's just an adventure.

When he first gets to the new world called Expectations, he is still skeptical of where he actually could be going. And throughout the story he gains the friends of a dog/ clock named Tock, who ironically makes a tick sound. His goal in the story is to rescue the Princesses Rhyme and Reason, who made that world nice and equal. But they are locked up in a tower and he must save them. By the end even Milo wishes he could go back to that world, he knows that his life can be exciting anywhere.

I always liked how the book was full of metaphors. Like Milo was first greeted by "The Whether Man" who can tell if something is whether this or that. Instead of a "Weather man" who will talk about meteorology. I didn't really notice that until the second time I read the book when I was older, but I think it's smart that the author did that. It makes the reader think about it as they are reading the book.

All in all I really recommend this book to anyone who likes an adventure story. Milo can be a really relatable character for anyone who has felt bored out of their mind and wishes for something, just anything that they could do. I think the moral of the story is to enjoy life and appreciated it. And I love who Norton Juster shows that to the reader.