Boy "Alice" goes into the Wonderland of "Pilgrim's Progress"

Norton Juster's "The Phantom Tollbooth" merges the surprise journey of Alice through the rabbit hole into strange places with the characters & places named after themselves like in Bunyan's immortal allegory.

A bored boy Milo gets a surprise package which is a miniature Tollbooth. He gets into his toy car & drives through it like Alice plunging into the rabbit hole. He enters a strange world of "Doldrums", a region without cheer & thought. He meets a "Watch" dog called "Tock", which carries a watch in its body. 

Like in the "Wizard of Oz", there is a good witch called "Which." There is a place called "Conclusions" to which one doesn't travel, but jump into it!

The land of Letters has a capital called "Dictionopolis" & the land of numbers' capital is "Digitopolis." The competing claims of the two cannot be reconciled until two princesses, "Rhyme"& "Reason" are rescued from "The Castle in the Air."

Milo, Tock & the appropriately named "Humbug" travel in the car on their noble mission.

After successfully completing it, Milo returns home. But after a night's sleep, he finds the Phantom Tollbooth has vanished, leaving a note that it has accomplished its task, i.e., ridding Milo of his boredom & finding his everyday life interesting & worthwhile.

The book, illustrated by the author's neighbour, Jules Feiffer, gets more interesting, as the age of the reader progresses! Also better the command over English of the reader, more his/her enjoyment. Otherwise the numerous puns & jokes will go right over their head!