“It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time,” Milo laments near the beginning of Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. “[T]here’s nothing for me to do, nowhere I’d care to go, and hardly anything worth seeing.”
This classic story, which follows Milo on his legendary adventure into the Lands Beyond, is a beautiful fable about creativity borne of ennui and is possibly my favourite children’s book ever. I’ve just learned that Knopf will be releasing a special edition of The Phantom Tollbooth this fall to celebrate the book’s 50th anniversary. It will include several essays from authors and artists. Here is a link to Michael Chabon’s introduction (printed recently in the New York Review of Books.)
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/apr/21/michael-chabon-phantom-tollbooth-wonder-words/