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Norton Juster
This is a wonderfully quirky book full of wordplay and illogical logic (I use the phrase 'illogical logic' to refer to logic that doesn't quite work or is deliberately misinterpreted, Terry Pratchett is particularly good at it). It highlights how much of our language is metaphorical when you do things like literally jump to Conclusions - a small island. I gave a copy to a child recently and we spent quite a while poring over the map which features such delights as "Entrance to the numbers mine", "illusions" and "foothills of confusion". I love books with maps at the beginning as they allow you to wonder and get excited about the story to come.
The story is that of two kingdoms, Dictionopolis (where the inhabitants are obsessed with words) and Digitopolis (whose inhabitants are obsessed with numbers). In the absence of "Rhyme and Reason" these naturally fall out over which holds the most important knowledge. It is left to Milo, a visitor to the land, to attempt to find them and bring them back. Under that this is a story about the power of words, numbers, looking and listening but also about the joy of them.
This is a consistently funny book, I wonder how many of the references young readers will be familiar with but I'm sure they would understand enough. They would certainly be enchanted by the delightful invented characters such as Alec, a boy who starts off with his head at his final height and grows down until his feet reach the ground when adult, all to maintain a stable point of view. They would also empathise with Milo who often feels he doesn't know enough and doesn't see why the things he's told are useful.
Mixing of senses also features heavily in the book, an orchestra that plays colour, sounds represented by physical things and many more. I was interested to read that Juster experienced synesthesia as a child something that undoubtedly contributed to this.
Some of the sections in Digitopolis echo the work of Jo Boaler who, in the excellent Mathematical Mindsets, writes about a sort of Mathsworld we often impose through word problems where common sense and real world experience is often unwanted. This exchange satires this approach to maths:
"'That's absurd,' objected Milo, whose head was spinning from all
the numbers and questions. 'That may be true,' he acknowledged,
'but it's completely accurate, and as long as the answer is right who
cares if the question is wrong?"
This would be a great book to read with a class, it is a lot of fun to read and really encourages a playful attitude to words and language. It would be fun to organise a market where words are sold like that of Dictionopolis and there are lots of points where you could have good debates. The King's cabinet who speak like a thesaurus would make a good game to develop vocabulary and later in the story there are some good opportunities for discussions of growth mindsets.
There are copious illustrations by Jules Feiffer which help bridge the gap between our world and the strange world through the tollbooth. Feiffer lived below Juster and was curious about all the pacing above him so went to enquire and they became friends. The Independent says Norton Juster said he only included the "Triple Demons of Compromise, 'one tall and thin, one short and fat, and the third exactly like the other two'" to give Feiffer an impossible challenge. I particularly like the images below. If they are too small the signs say 'The Fat Man' and 'The Thin Man'. This is their approximate layout on the page.
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