A Christmas Present for the Pun-loving Child by Griselda Heppel

This time last year I opened the Christmas month by waxing lyrical over one of my favourite books as a child: The Magic Pudding, the Australian children’s classic by Norman Lindsay.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
By Book, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/
w/index.php?curid=14265163

So this December I thought I’d follow that by enthusing about another great favourite: The Phantom Tollbooth by the American author, Norton Juster. 

This glorious fantasy novel, bursting with puns and wordplay, leads Milo, a boy with nothing to do except drive his pedal car, into the Kingdom of Wisdom which has been rent asunder by disagreement between the two brothers ruling it. In Dictionopolis, King Azaz the Unabridged (a title I fell in love with on the spot) maintains that words are more important than numbers, while at the other end of the land, the Mathemagician insists, from his fortress of Digitopolis, that - yes, you’ve guessed it - the reverse is true. As a result the princesses, Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason have been banished to the Castle in the Air and nothing will come right until they return. 

Naturally it’s Milo’s quest to rescue the princesses, so he sets off with Tock, a dog bearing a large watch on his side, being a watchdog (duh), and the somewhat useless Humbug who has attached himself to the party. At a banquet, Milo is given his own words to eat, which turn out to be light and insubstantial. He gets stuck in the Doldrums and has to think his way out, but then must take care not to make sweeping judgements because there’s an island called Conclusions and the next thing he knows, he’s jumping out of his car and heading straight for it. There’s an irate Spelling Bee (a pun I didn’t get, as this wasn’t a thing in the UK when I grew up); a Senses taker who plies Milo and his companions with forms to fill in until they are in danger of, indeed, losing their senses; the Whether man; a Faintly Macabre Which; the mysterious Canby… the puns flow thick and fast and have probably formed the sense of humour I have today, to my children’s eye-rolling despair.

NOT Subtraction Soup. 
Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/security-535773/
?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image
&utm_content=570922">Security</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//

My favourite episode is when the travellers arrive, tired and hungry, in Digitopolis, where they are regaled with bowls and bowls of strangely unfilling subtraction soup. By the time the Mathemagician has explained that in his realm, the natural state is to be full and you only eat to become hungry again, the poor Humbug lets out an agonised wail: he realises he’s at least 24 times as hungry as he was when he started. 

 

As with all great children’s books, a message is obviously intended but at the time I had no idea what it was. I just loved the story and the language and the jokes. I did understand that things needed to be put right in the Kingdom of Wisdom, but I found the princesses Rhyme and Reason, when they appeared, rather drippy (I wonder if Juster did too?) and couldn’t see their role in the plot. I fear that may say more about my denseness than anything else because as an adult of course, it all fell into place. 

Map for The Phantom Tollbooth drawn by illustrator Jules Feiffer.
By http://mikepop.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/the-lands-beyond.html image or scan of end paper
from The Phantom Tollbooth, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29406843

Did I mention that The Phantom Tollbooth has superb original illustrations by the great cartoonist, Jules Feiffer? 

If you’re stuck for a Christmas present for a pun-loving child (please, please tell me they still exist), look no further.

Find out more about Griselda Heppel here:

www.griseldaheppel.com 

https://griseldaheppel.wordpress.com/

and her children's books:

Ante's Inferno 

The Tragickall History of Henry Fowst

and

The Fall of a Sparrow