"The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Jester Milo. A young boy is so bored with life he decides to have an adventure of a lifetime. His daily routine was racing home as fast as he can just so that he can ignore the world and everything in it. He finds himself in a wander land with two kings who rule that land: Dictionopolis, for his love of words, and Digitopolis, named for his love of numbers. These kings quarreled and created a rift in their division of societies and their rule over them. Milo the boy realizes he must save reality and rhyme, to bring normalcy to a world where things are extremely off balance.
I found that some of the book has a "Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" vibe to it. The fact that Milo comes off as such a bore in the introduction of the novel ,and then having him wake up to a world of make belief was hopeful to me. The book introduces so many bizarre characters, I only wish the writer had time to explore those characters more, and bring their purpose into Milo's existence more meaningful at the close of the book, instead of just introducing them to get Milo through the exploration of the two kingdoms.
I like the fact that Tock, Dyne, the .58 boy, and Chrona-the-Great all gave Milo gifts that would help him explore the land,but these gifts seemed a bit of the Wizard of OZ type: not useful at all. Overall, the book needs a sequel, to explore a second visit to the now changed attributes that Milo created.
