Welcome to the Lands Beyond! As a celebration of one of our favorite classic stories, The Phantom Tollbooth, 6th grade readers gathered in the library yesterday for a very punny and puzzling book club. Using student artwork, we split the library into Dictionopolis 
and Digitopolis. In Digitopolis, number lovers could test their skills with a round of 24 or a Sudoku puzzle. If they chose to visit Dicitonopolis, budding linguists could try their hand at Boggle, Catchphrase, or build something wonderful with Lego poetry!
My personal favorite part was the visits by the Spelling Bee, Princess Pun, the Mathemagician, and a Riddmaster (they might look familiar….). Each teacher got so into their character and our guests in the Lands Beyond had a blast answering riddles, solving puzzles, and attempting to defeat the Spelling Bee (that one was the hardest for me!).
After the fun and games, we settled in for some pizza and discussion around The 
Phantom Tollbooth‘s many themes. I love how many different things you could talk about when looking closely at Norton Juster’s infamous novel. We started our conversation with some basic questions: What do you do when you’re bored? Are numbers or words more important? What was a time that you jumped to conclusions – did it work out for you? From there, students were inspired to ask their own questions, and they had some great ones! I loved hearing them talk about which demon they most resonated with, and where they would live if they were in the Lands Beyond.
Thanks for a great book club, 6th grade readers! I’m looking forward to celebrating another classic story with you in early April… stay tuned for details 🙂
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