Norton Juster facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Norton Philip Juster
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | June 2, 1929 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | March 8, 2021 (aged 91) Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Academic, writer |
| Education | University of Pennsylvania University of Liverpool |
| Period | 1961–2021 (children's writer) |
| Genre | Children's fiction, wordplay |
| Notable works | The Phantom Tollbooth The Dot and the Line |
Norton Juster (born June 2, 1929, died March 8, 2021) was an American writer, architect, and teacher. He is famous for writing popular children's books. His most well-known books are The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and the Line.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Norton Juster was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 2, 1929. His parents were Jewish immigrants to the United States. His father, Samuel Juster, was born in Romania. He became an architect by studying through a special course. His mother, Minnie Silberman, came from a Polish Jewish family. Norton's brother, Howard, also became an architect.
Juster studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1952. After that, he studied city planning at the University of Liverpool in England.
Career Highlights
In 1954, Juster joined the Civil Engineer Corps of the United States Navy. He became a lieutenant junior grade. To fight boredom during one trip, he started writing and drawing a story for kids. Later, his commanding officer told him to stop. However, Juster also finished a funny, unpublished fairy tale called "The Passing of Irving."
When he was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, he again got bored. He created a fake military newspaper called the Naval News Service. He used it to ask attractive women for interviews. This plan worked very well! A neighbor even asked to join him as an assistant. His next idea was to create the "Garibaldi Society." This club's main goal was to reject everyone who applied. He designed a cool logo and rejection letter. Around this time, he met Jules Feiffer while taking out the trash.
Writing Adventures
About six months after meeting Feiffer, Juster left the Navy. He worked for an architectural company in Manhattan. He also taught part-time and took other jobs. Juster, Feiffer, and another friend shared an apartment. Juster sometimes played jokes on Feiffer.
Juster's famous children's novel, The Phantom Tollbooth, was published in 1961. Jules Feiffer drew the pictures for it. After that came The Dot and the Line in 1963. This book became a classic in classrooms across the country. Juster wrote other books too, like Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys (1965) and Otter Nonsense (1982). He also wrote A Woman's Place: Yesterday's Women in Rural America (1996) for adults. This book was based on his own life on a farm in Massachusetts.
Architecture and Teaching
Even though Juster loved writing, his main job was always architecture. He taught architecture and environmental design at Hampshire College. He worked there from 1970 until he retired in 1992. In 1970, he also helped start an architectural company called Juster Pope Associates. This firm was in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Later, in 1978, the company changed its name to Juster Pope Frazier.
Later Life and Legacy
In his later years, Juster lived in Massachusetts. His wife, Jeanne, passed away in October 2018. They had been married for 54 years. Even after retiring from architecture, he kept writing for many years.
His book The Hello, Goodbye Window, published in 2005, won a special award. It received the Caldecott Medal in 2006 for Chris Raschka's amazing illustrations. The next book, Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie, came out in 2008. Two years later, he worked with Jules Feiffer again on The Odious Ogre.
Norton Juster died on March 8, 2021, at his home in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was 91 years old. He had been dealing with health issues before he passed away.
Books by Norton Juster
- The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), illustrated by Jules Feiffer
- The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1963)
- Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys (1965)
- Stark Naked: A Paranomastic Odyssey (1969), illustrated by Arnold Roth
- So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in America 1865–1895 (editor; 1979) – a non-fiction book
- Otter Nonsense (1982), illustrated by Eric Carle
- As: A Surfeit of Similes (1989)
- A Woman's Place: Yesterday's Women in Rural America (1996) – a non-fiction book
- The Hello, Goodbye Window (2005), illustrated by Chris Raschka
- Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie (2008), illustrated by Chris Raschka
- The Odious Ogre (2010), illustrated by Jules Feiffer
- Neville (2011), illustrated by G. Brian Karas
Books in Other Media
Both The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and the Line were made into films. The famous animator Chuck Jones created these movies. The film The Dot and the Line won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1966.
The Phantom Tollbooth was also turned into a musical. Norton Juster and Sheldon Harnick worked on it. Sheldon Harnick wrote the lyrics, and Arnold Black composed the music.
A composer named Robert Xavier Rodriguez created musical pieces based on Juster's works. He made "A Colorful Symphony" from The Phantom Tollbooth for a narrator and orchestra. He also set The Dot and the Line to music for a narrator and a small group of instruments.
See also
In Spanish: Norton Juster para niños
