Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley was born in London on August 30, 1797. Her parents were William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, who died days after she gave birth to Mary. She married the Romantic poet, Percy Shelley, who died young in what was believed to be a boating accident. Mary Shelley became famous for Frankenstein, a famous work in Gothic Literature. Read about Castle Frankenstein and take a look at books about Frankenstein. Also, take a look at 19th-Century Women Writers.

Number and words and whatever comes in between...The Phantom Tollbooth is a modern fairy tale--famous for its wordplay and witty interplay. Instead of a wardrobe or a looking glass, young Milo travels to the Kingdom of Wisdom through a magic tollbooth, where he must make sense of a war between the people of words (from Dictionopolis) and the people of numbers (from Digitoplis).

In The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster writes: "Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not."

Have you read The Phantom Tollbooth? What did you think? Are there other books with which you would compare it? And, there's something else... when you looked at the cover, and/and or read about the book, what did you expect? Does the cover art ever influence your choice in books?

Cover Art © Random House.