The Phantom Tollbooth

by Norman Juster

Apparently, one of the people who contributed to Amazon's Top 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime list really enjoyed bizarre children's books.  I thought A Wrinkle in Time was out there, but The Phantom Tollbooth really takes the cake in that category.  

This novel is about a young boy named Milo who is extremely bored with his really nice house, fancy school, and plethora of toys (your basic first world problems.)  Seemingly to save him from boredom, a tollbooth appears one day in his bedroom (standard.)  He sets it up and drives a toy car through it only to find himself transported to a distant world (basically every child's dream come true.)  There he meets Tock, the watchdog, (a dog that literally is also a watch) and the Humbug who accompany him on his journey.

The entire story is basically one big play on words.  It is extremely inventive and clever the way Juster takes ordinary words, like "watchdog," and gives them a whole new purpose in the book.  The first half of the book Milo and his companions are simply meeting different character in this new world.  About 150 pages in (finally) you're given a purpose to the book: Milo is to rescue Rhyme and Reason, two princesses that have been stowed away in the mystical Castle in the Air.  Because of the absence of Rhyme and Reason, nothing in this world makes any sense.

As the story goes on the characters get even more nonsensical and there is even a troop of demons.  They are not your average every day demons with horns and glowing eyes, however.  They are demons of everyday life.  Like the Demon of Petty Tasks who delays Milo with meaningless jobs or the Demon of Insincerity who can never be trusted to tell the truth.

The slow beginning aside, this book is actually quite clever.  Though some of it may go over the head of the average elementary school kid, it has a great message.  Life's demons are things like boredom, meaningless tasks, insincerity, and the other "bad guys" encountered in the book.  But if you look closely, you can find joy and excitement all around you.

The Good Girl

by Mary Kubica

Now, pretty much on principle I refuse to like just about anything that my mother recommends for me.  For this reason I have yet to watch The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother, two shows that my mother is strongly encouraging me to watch.

I do this because it just pains me so much when she's right.  Although, let's be honest here, more often than not mothers are right about most things (Yes, Mom, I said it.)  She was right when she got me to watch Downton Abbey (Only the best show in existence) and she was right when she convinced me to read The Good Girl.

This was Mary Kubica's first novel which, as I mentioned in my entry about Painted Horses, makes me especially passionate about it.  However, Kubica's novel is in a much higher league than that one in my opinion.  This is without a doubt one of my top three books that I have blogged about thus far (So yes, Mother you were right.)

In a Gone Girl-esque plot, this book is about the mysterious kidnapping of a young woman.  That woman, named Mia, comes from a wealthy but detached and dysfunctional family.  The kidnapping is told from the alternating perspectives of Mia's mother, the detective searching for her, and the kidnapper himself.

As the book develops we learn more about Mia's estranged relationship with her family, and the kidnapper's own difficult childhood.  This leads to a major plot twist in the book, that makes it the encapsulating and page-turning novel it is.  I recommend making this book the next book you read, without hesitation!  You will not regret it.

A Wrinkle In Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

A Wrinkle in Time is a book from Amazon's list that I know I read at some point as a child, but chose to reread it because I have no recollection of it.  Lo and behold, it is quite a different experience as an adult.  As a child, you are transported into a fantastical world of time travel and faraway planets.  As an adult you find yourself wondering.... what drugs was this author on that she could come up with this!?!

I did some research, and it turns out that the world created by Madeleine L'Engle was a result of her studies in the classics, quantum physics, and a short article about the so called "tesseract" which features heavily in the book.  Apparently a tesseract is a "real" thing, or at least theorized to be real.  L'Engle was so fascinated with the concept of the tesseract and time travel that she wrote her entire series because of it.

Illustration of a tesseract

A Wrinkle in Time follows the story of young Meg, an outcast and underachieving girl from a family of geniuses.  Her mother is a genius scientist, her twin brothers are exceptional in school, her baby brother speaks like he obtained a PhD, and then there's her father- a scientist for the government who has been missing for years without explanation.  Meg has always felt like the most disappointing member of her family, until one day she gets swept off with her brother and a random boy from school to save her father in the far reaches of the universe.

 

With the assistance of three mysterious beings named Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit, the trio encounters distant planets and monsters I couldn't even dream up while in search of Meg's father.  I read this book in about three days, unable to do much else.  It is strange, bizarre, and fafetched but fascinating all the same.  If you didn't read it as a child, you should definitely give it a go as an adult.