THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH
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Why? Families go out together in the evening, too. Furthermore, certain “children’s books” have as much to say to grown-ups as to kids–and more to say than a lot of “adult” fare. Take The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster’s drolly witty 1961 novel about a boy who drives his kiddie car through a magic tollbooth into an imaginary world where knowledge is jumbled. Like his predecessors, from Odysseus to Alice, Juster’s Milo journeys into a weird wonderland that needs him to put it in order. His adventure gives him and his audience insight into why things are the way they are in the real world–which is just as screwed up as the one he’s visited in his imagination, of course, and much more difficult to set right.
The problem in the Kingdom of Wisdom is that the twin cities of language and numbers–Dictionopolis and Digitopolis–are locked in a feud over whose export is more important. (The citizens of Digitopolis dig digits from the ground; in Dictionopolis words grow on trees–since money doesn’t, something must.) The only way to end the standoff is to rescue the imprisoned princesses, Rhyme and Reason; so off Milo goes in his electric auto (which in Wisdom travels under the power of thought) to perform a masterpiece of shuttle diplomacy. (No swords or Uzis are needed on this mission, only rationality.) He’s joined by two worthy companions–Tock the watchdog, a timekeeping canine, and the huffy Humbug, an up-to-date urban variation on the Cowardly Lion. Together the trio face down such formidable foes as the Terrible Trivium, the Horrible Hopping Hindsight, the Gross Exaggeration, and the Threadbare Excuse–demons we all know too well.
Or of the turmoil of real life–which, in making a show that’s as much for adults as for kids, Lifeline would have done well to consider. On the same Sunday that I was sitting in Lifeline’s cool and cozy Rogers Park space, several thousand students, teachers, and parents were in Springfield, rallying at the state capitol for aid to Chicago schools. (Neither the governor nor the legislative leaders of either party saw fit to attend.) Chicago’s situation is hardly unusual: public education in America is going to hell, and no one seems to care. Milo (who, prior to his trip through the tollbooth, didn’t care about learning because no one had ever explained its purpose) showed courage and intelligence when he restored Rhyme and Reason to the world of words and numbers; we need more Milos in the real world, and fewer humbugs.
