Mitch Johnson: I Wish I’d Written

The winner of the 2018 Branford Boase Award with Kick, Mitch Johnson chooses a book that transported him to another kingdom.

If there is one book that I could honestly describe as life-changing, it would be The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I was twelve years old when I borrowed it from my school library, and it blew my mind. I loved it so much that the librarian let me keep the copy I’d borrowed, and to this day that battered little paperback is one of my most prized possessions.

The Phantom Tollbooth is about a seriously bored boy called Milo, who comes home to find a mysterious package waiting for him. Inside is a portal to the Kingdom of Wisdom – a land of words and numbers – and Milo sets out on an adventure that is full of eccentric characters, fantastical landscapes and baffling conundrums. The novel seamlessly weaves humour, imagination, curiosity and nonsense into a tale that is impossible to predict. In an episode that typifies the story, Milo finds a staircase that leads to infinity, and he discovers – after climbing for hours and getting no closer to the top – just how vast infinity really is. It’s a very wise book that makes its readers feel wise as well, and the scratchy illustrations by Jules Feiffer are a perfect accompaniment: strange, nightmarish and wonderful. The whole thing is like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but weirder.

But the thing I love the most about The Phantom Tollbooth is that Milo is totally unready for his adventure, but adventure chooses him anyway. It made me believe that maybe, next time, it might choose me.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, 978-0007263486, £7.99 pbk

Strike, Mitch Johnson’s new book, is out now, Usborne, 978-1474928151, £7.99 pbk.