The Phantom Tollbooth

Written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, The Phantom Tollbooth (1961, Knopf) is a children's book, a modern-day fairy tale full of wordplay.

Characters

• Milo, the protagonist
• Tock, a watchdog and loyal companion of Milo
• The Lethargarians, whose regular schedule consists of dawdling and dillydallying
• The Humbug, a large, talking insect that acts as the anti-hero
• King Azaz the Unabridged, ruler of Dictionopolis
• The Mathemagician, ruler of Digitopolis
• The princesses Rhyme and Reason
• The Whether Man
• Faintly Macabre, the Not-So-Wicked Which
• The Spelling Bee
• Officer Shrift, apparently Dictionopolis' entire police force, who enjoys arresting and imprisoning people, but isn't concerned with keeping them incarcerated (as the name would lead you to guess, he's very short)
• Alec Bings, who sees through things
• The Giant, the Midget, the Fat Man, and the Thin Man, all the same very ordinary-loooking individual who explains that he is at once the world's shortest giant, tallest midget, thinnest fat man, and fattest thin man
• Canby, a denizen of Conclusions who is both as short as can be and as tall as can be, among other things
• Chroma the Great, conductor of the dawn
• Dr. Kakofonous A. Dischord, a fan of noise: the "A" stands for "AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!"
• The Awful Dynne, an emotional, noise-loving creature formed of blue smoke; an accomplice of Dr. Dischord
• The Soundkeeper, ruler of the Valley of Sound, and keeper of a large collection of previously-uttered noises; a stern woman who actually prefers silence, and has banned sound in her valley because she felt the locals had abused the privelege
• The Dodecahedron
• The Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a monstrous bird that anticipates everything you say and takes the words right out of your mouth; has ambitions of being a demon, but can only manage to be a nuisance
• The Terrible Trivium, a demon who seduces passers-by with mindlessly easy but pointless tasks