101 Books to Read Before You Die discussion

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I'm just a couple chapters into this. It has a very interesting feel, very allegorical, a la "Pilgrim's Progress" although not nearly that complex! Did any of you read this as a kid? I'd never heard of it before this group.

I wish I'd had this book as a kid- I think it would have really made an impact on me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it, because I had seen part of the movie version on TV a few years ago, and was very underwhelmed. I'm hlad I did read it- I love Tock!

Wow, this was wonderful! I can't believe I never read this as a kid, it's right up my alley! It's basically a whole books of plays on words, idioms, and the general silliness of the English language. I loved how cleverly he put together the turns of speech and phrases and made whole characters and regions out of it, putting it all together in the end. It's really quite brilliant. Plus, it's a good old fashioned adventure story. What could be better?

I even found myself underlining things that struck me--something I don't recall doing in a children's book before:

"I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said..."Only when you use a lot to say a little," said Tock.

"...people use as many words as they can and think themselves very wise for doing so. For always remember that while it is wrong to use too few, it is often far worse to use too many."

"How can you see something that isn't there?"..."Sometimes it's much simpler than seeing things that are."

"You can't improve sound by having only silence."

"...just because you can never reach it does't mean that it's not worth looking for."

"...the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort."

"Why is it...that quite often even the things which are correct just don't seem to be right?"

"If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult."

"You must never feel badly about making mistakes...as long as you take the trouble to learn from them."

"...whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."

"...what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will> do."

"...so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible."

Seriously, who knew so much wisdom and deep thinking could be jammed into a kid's book? Maybe kids just get those simple truths a little easier than we adults sometimes.

I'm looking forward to revisiting this with my own children in the future and adventuring through the mess that is English!
5/5