Final Discussion of Phantom Tollboth
Overview: The Phantom Tollbooth
The Phantom Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo, who learns that if he is bored, it is only because he is boring. He comes home after the usual boring day at school and finds something new in his room. It is a child-sized tollbooth, which is a portal to another dimension (much like Alice's looking glass).
There are numerous puns and jokes in The Phantom Tollbooth about the nature of people and society--all of which give Milo insight while entertaining the reader and planting a seed of reason.
Milo drives past the tollbooth in his kiddie-kar and into the Kingdom of Wisdom--a place of possibilities. He travels toward one of its two capitals, Dictionopolis, which is at war with the other capital, Digitoplis. It is a war between arts and sciences, discourse and logic. Although numbers and words are related, their followers fight.
Milo becomes lost in The Doldrums (just as in his own life he was bored, failing to use his imagination and fleeing the load of facts shoved at him every school day. Milo is joined by a new friend, the faithful watchdog Tock, and other friends. They arrive in Dictionopolis, where the letters of the alphabet grow on trees, implying that language is a living thing. Words are affirmed.
Characters in The Phantom Tollbooth
The characters along Milo's driving tour are amusing and enlightening. Milo meets Aunt Faintly Macabre, the Which, who tells him about the dueling rulers, Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician. (Many people today, in fact, believe that mathematics is magic and sorcery.) The princesses Rhyme and Reason are the common sense in wisdom. They fail to reconcile the battling brothers and are imprisoned in the Castle in the Air (unreality and improbable notions) for their interference. Of course, this castle is in the Mountains of Ignorance.
Milo persuades Azaz to free Rhyme and Reason and must also convince the brother ling, so Milo and company head to Digitopolis.
Growing up in The Phantom Tollbooth
In the Forest of Sight, they travel through Reality and Illusions, just as all children do as they grow up. There a wonderful scene, where Milo watches Chroma and his color orchestra conduct a sunset. Following this, Milo babysits the orchestra and tries to conduct morning to hilarious result: an entire week lost in time.
Milo finally meets the Mathemagician, who ushers the friends through a Numbers Mine, where numbers are excavated like gemstones. Now we know that words are alive, numbers are jewels, and both are equally as beautiful. This discovery should have ended the feud between the factions. However, Milo has to trick the Mathemagician into agreeing with his brother. People don't like to lose, even in the Kingdom of Wisdom.
Among Ignorance, Milo confronts several demons. For instance, the Everpresent Wordsnatcher is a horrible bird that twists others' words to his own advantage. Children today need to learn about this bird early on in order to recognize and avoid it! The Terrible Trivium is even worse, as it discourages the rescue by requiring useless busywork (there are plenty of those in society). Insincerity tricks the rescue party with half-truths, so that they tumble into a pit (which reminds us of salesmen and politicians).
To End The Phantom Tollbooth
For a happy ending, Milo and his new friends defeat the demons and free Rhyme and Reason--to invigorate the Kingdom of Wisdom. The kings reunite the land; and wisdom prevails. When Milo returns home, he finds a note in place of the tollbooth, instructing him that he can find his own wisdom now. Milo will hopefully never be bored again.
Check out the movie! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llg5VODW6n4
The Phantom Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo, who learns that if he is bored, it is only because he is boring. He comes home after the usual boring day at school and finds something new in his room. It is a child-sized tollbooth, which is a portal to another dimension (much like Alice's looking glass).
There are numerous puns and jokes in The Phantom Tollbooth about the nature of people and society--all of which give Milo insight while entertaining the reader and planting a seed of reason.
Milo drives past the tollbooth in his kiddie-kar and into the Kingdom of Wisdom--a place of possibilities. He travels toward one of its two capitals, Dictionopolis, which is at war with the other capital, Digitoplis. It is a war between arts and sciences, discourse and logic. Although numbers and words are related, their followers fight.
Milo becomes lost in The Doldrums (just as in his own life he was bored, failing to use his imagination and fleeing the load of facts shoved at him every school day. Milo is joined by a new friend, the faithful watchdog Tock, and other friends. They arrive in Dictionopolis, where the letters of the alphabet grow on trees, implying that language is a living thing. Words are affirmed.
Characters in The Phantom Tollbooth
The characters along Milo's driving tour are amusing and enlightening. Milo meets Aunt Faintly Macabre, the Which, who tells him about the dueling rulers, Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician. (Many people today, in fact, believe that mathematics is magic and sorcery.) The princesses Rhyme and Reason are the common sense in wisdom. They fail to reconcile the battling brothers and are imprisoned in the Castle in the Air (unreality and improbable notions) for their interference. Of course, this castle is in the Mountains of Ignorance.
Milo persuades Azaz to free Rhyme and Reason and must also convince the brother ling, so Milo and company head to Digitopolis.
Growing up in The Phantom Tollbooth
In the Forest of Sight, they travel through Reality and Illusions, just as all children do as they grow up. There a wonderful scene, where Milo watches Chroma and his color orchestra conduct a sunset. Following this, Milo babysits the orchestra and tries to conduct morning to hilarious result: an entire week lost in time.
Milo finally meets the Mathemagician, who ushers the friends through a Numbers Mine, where numbers are excavated like gemstones. Now we know that words are alive, numbers are jewels, and both are equally as beautiful. This discovery should have ended the feud between the factions. However, Milo has to trick the Mathemagician into agreeing with his brother. People don't like to lose, even in the Kingdom of Wisdom.
Among Ignorance, Milo confronts several demons. For instance, the Everpresent Wordsnatcher is a horrible bird that twists others' words to his own advantage. Children today need to learn about this bird early on in order to recognize and avoid it! The Terrible Trivium is even worse, as it discourages the rescue by requiring useless busywork (there are plenty of those in society). Insincerity tricks the rescue party with half-truths, so that they tumble into a pit (which reminds us of salesmen and politicians).
To End The Phantom Tollbooth
For a happy ending, Milo and his new friends defeat the demons and free Rhyme and Reason--to invigorate the Kingdom of Wisdom. The kings reunite the land; and wisdom prevails. When Milo returns home, he finds a note in place of the tollbooth, instructing him that he can find his own wisdom now. Milo will hopefully never be bored again.
Check out the movie! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llg5VODW6n4
The Phantom Tollbooth Project Ideas
Don't forget to finish characterization
Discussion Question: How do we see these characters represented in real life?
Milo - The main character, Milo is a little boy who goes through all of his days in a state of horrible boredom. This routine changes when Milo takes a trip through the mysterious make-believe tollbooth that appears in his bedroom one day.
Tock - Milo's friend Tock is a literally a "watchdog." A giant clock makes up part of his body, and he constantly makes ticking noises. He patrols the Doldrums and stops people from wasting time.
The Humbug - The Humbug is an insect who lives only to flatter people—especially himself. The Humbug is ignorant about everything from math to geography and proves himself the fool by his constant attempts to say intelligent things. After trying to brown-nose his way to favor with King Azaz, he accompanies Milo and Tock on their journey.
King Azaz - King Azaz is ruler of the realm of letters and words. Azaz and his brother argue over which is more important—numbers or letters, and they banish the princesses Rhyme and Reason. Once he realizes the foolishness of his squabble, King Azaz sends Milo to rescue the princesses.
The Mathemagician - Azaz's brother, the Mathemagician, lives in a world of numbers. Unlike Azaz, the Mathemagician has doubts about releasing Rhyme and Reason.
Rhyme and Reason - The two princesses were adopted by the King of Wisdom and raised alongside Azaz and the Mathemagician. When Azaz and the Mathemagician asked them to determine whether numbers or letters are more important, Rhyme and Reason say each is equally valuable. The brothers then imprisoned the two princesses in the Castle in the Air.
Faintly Macabre - The Which, Faintly Macabre, has been imprisoned since Rhyme and Reason disappeared. It was once her duty to select the words to use for every occasion, but she became corrupted by her power and began to horde the words for herself. Faintly tells Milo the story of the imprisoned princesses and inspires him to broach the subject with King Azaz.
Alec Bings - Milo first meets Alec Bings in the Forest of Sight, where Milo sees a boy floating several feet off the ground. Alec explains that in his family, everyone's head remains at the same height from the day they are born until the day they die and that their legs grow toward the ground. Alec has the special ability to "see through things" and can see anything except that which is right before his eyes.
Chroma - Conductor of the great color orchestra in the Forest of Sight, Chroma makes sure all the colors of the day are properly handled. When he decides to take a rest, Milo makes a mess of the colors of the day.
Dischord and Dynne - Dr. Dischord, a quack doctor, prescribes medicines of terrible noises to all of his patients and has an assistant, a smoke monster named Dynne. Dischord and Dynne invent new sounds, peddle noise pulls, racket lotions, clamor salves and hubbub tonics in the Valley of Sound.
The Soundkeeper - Once ruler of the Valley of Sound, the Soundkeeper becomes dismayed with the lack of appreciation of beautiful sounds and the rise of Dr. Dischord's terrible practice. In protest, she cuts off sound and retreats to the fortress where she keeps all sounds made since the beginning of time.
The Dodecahedron - The Dodecahedron has twelve different faces wearing twelve different emotions. He leads Milo and his companions through the numbers mine, where workers chisel out gemlike digits, to the city of Digitopolis.
The Everpresent Wordsnatcher - More nuisance than demon, the Everpresent Wordsnatcher is a bird who flutters around the Mountains of Ignorance turning the words of others around to illustrate his own cleverness.
The Terrible Trivium - The Terrible Trivium is a demon with no facial features. He lives in the Mountains of Ignorance and preys upon travellers, convincing them to undertake tasks that can never be completed.
The Demon of Insincerity - The Demon of Insincerity looks like a cross between a beaver and a kangaroo. He tries to scare Milo and his companions off their path through the Mountains of Ignorance by throwing half-truths at them, which are only dispelled when they see this demon for what he really is.
The Gelatinous Giant - The Gelatinous Giant is so huge that Milo first mistakes him for a mountain. He is the epitome of spinelessness. He hides in the Mountains of Ignorance and tries to look exactly like everything around him because he thinks it is "unsafe" to be different.
The Senses Taker - The Senses Taker spends his days in the Castle in the Air trying to rob people of their senses by bombarding them with detailed questions. His appearance as an ink-stained old man perched over an enormous book deceives Milo into thinking his purpose is anything other than wasting time.
Officer Shrift - Officer Shrift is twice as wide as he is tall. In Dictionopolis, he works as a police officer, judge, and jailer all at the same time. Officer Shrift has a habit of sentencing people to millions of years in prison then immediately forgetting about them.
The Whether Man - A peculiar fellow who says everything three times, the Whether Man is the caretaker of Expectations. He is so busy thinking about what could be and why that he never seems to go anywhere or get anything done.
The Lethargians - The Lethargians, minute creatures, live in perpetual boredom in the Doldrums. They change colors to match their surroundings and sometimes enforce laws against thinking and laughing.
The Spelling Bee - Though he is a giant bee, the Spelling Bee is a self-taught master of spelling and enjoys randomly spelling the words he hears or speaks.
The Half Boy - The result of a statistic, the Half Boy is really the leftover .58 from the 2.58 children the average family has. He believes in the reality of averages and likes to spend his time on the staircase to Infinity.
From: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/tollbooth/characters.html
Setting Changes:Milo, a very bored little boy, receives an unusual package one day: a make- believe tollbooth. When he drives through it in his electric toy car, he is suddenly transported to the Lands Beyond, a fantastic world of imagination. On his way to Dictionopolis, one of the country's two capitals, he meets Tock, the watchdog who joins him on his journey. In Dictionopolis, Milo meets King Azaz who presides over the world of letters and words. Azaz sends Milo on a mission to rescue two princesses, Rhyme and Reason, who are imprisoned in the Castle in the Air, which floats hundreds of feet off the ground. Milo and Tock leave Dictionopolis with a new companion, the Humbug, whom Azaz has sent along as a guide. The three head toward Digitopolis where they hope to persuade the Mathemagician to release the princesses.
On their way to Digitopolis, Milo, Tock and the Humbug encounter all sorts of unusual people and places. Just outside Dictionopolis they stop at Point of View, where they meet Alec Bings, a little boy who floats above the ground because he has not grown down to it yet. In his family, everyone's head stays at exactly the same height their entire lives and their legs grow down until they touch the earth. The travelers then proceed past the twin cities of Reality and Illusions and come upon Chroma and his symphony of color. Milo watches in wonder as Chroma conducts the orchestra through the colors of the sunset and, once Chroma has gone off to bed, decides to try to conduct the sunrise himself. This proves to be more difficult than Milo thought, and soon he has made a complete mess of the colors, which he manages to fix just moments before anyone notices.
The exhausted Milo then leads his friends towards the Valley of Sound, where they meet Dischord, a fake doctor who deals in noises, and his sidekick Dynne, a monster made of smoke. Once the travelers escape the doctor and his horrible racket, they find themselves in the Valley of Sound, which turns out to be completely silent. They meet the Soundkeeper who has withheld all the sounds of the Valley because people have stopped appreciating them and instead gave business to Dischord and Dynne. Milo steals a sound from the Soundkeeper's palace, which the people of the valley use to break open the sound vault.
After helping save the Valley of Sound, Milo and his friends continue on their way to Digitopolis, taking a short detour to the Island of Conclusions, to which they magically jump after making assumptions about their trip. They swim back to shore through the Sea of Knowledge and find themselves on the outskirts of Digitopolis. There they meet the Dodecahedron, a man with twelve faces, each of which expresses a different emotion. The Dodecahedron takes the travelers to see the Mathemagician, after giving them a tour through the Numbers Mine, where digits are pulled from the earth like jewels. Milo manages to trick the Mathemagician into agreeing to release the princesses and finds out that he must climb through the Mountains of Ignorance to reach the Castle in the Air.
Although they are afraid of the demons they might encounter, Milo, Tock, and the Humbug head into the Mountains of Ignorance. They meet the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a dirty little bird who twists their sentences into his own meanings, the Terrible Trivium, a man with no features on his face who stalls the travelers with meaningless busywork, and the Demon of Insincerity, who tries to trick them into leaving the path to the castle. Fortunately, Milo has learned a great deal from his travels in the Lands Beyond and manages to escape each of these demons and make his way to the unbelievably tall staircase to the Castle in the Air. After climbing to the top, the three travelers encounter a final demon, the Senses Taker, who demands all sorts of trivial information and bogs them down in meaningless questions. Milo's sense of humor, the one thing the Senses Taker cannot take away, helps him laugh his way past the demon and up to Rhyme and Reason.
The two princesses are thrilled to hear that Azaz and the Mathemagician have agreed to release them. Riding on Tock's back, since time flies, they soar over the Mountains of Ignorance and land in the midst of a hoard of demons. When it seems that all hope is lost, the Armies of Wisdom, led by Azaz and the Mathemagician, suddenly arrive and drive back the demons. The two leaders welcome the princesses and begin a celebration to mark their return.
Milo himself must also return home and says his goodbyes to all the friends he made in the Lands Beyond. He returns to his bedroom to find that only a few minutes have passed. The next day, he hurries home from school with dreams of further adventures only to find the tollbooth gone. All that remains is a note that tells him that he has learned so much that he should be able to find his way to all sorts of fantastic lands without the help of the tollbooth. Milo realizes that there are all sorts of fantastic adventures to be had anywhere, even in his own bedroom.
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Summer Challenge
http://www.pinterest.com/lmbhines/ebob-book-list-2014-2015/
http://www.battleofthebooks.org/book-list/elite-book-list-for-4th-6th-grades-2013-14.php
http://www.battleofthebooks.org/book-list/elite-book-list-for-4th-6th-grades-2013-14.php
AIG Survey
On a separate sheet of paper, please answer the following questions. Be honest and respectful. Your opinion matters!
1) What was your favorite part of AIG?
2) What was your least favorite part of AIG?
3) List 3 things you learned.
4) List at least ideas that you want to learn about next year.
Thank you so much for your time. Your input will be put to good use.
1) What was your favorite part of AIG?
2) What was your least favorite part of AIG?
3) List 3 things you learned.
4) List at least ideas that you want to learn about next year.
Thank you so much for your time. Your input will be put to good use.