Norton Juster
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Norton Juster is an American architect and author. He is famous primarily for having written two children's books: The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and the Line.
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Biography
Juster was born on June 2, 1929, and wanted to be an architect from childhood on. His father was an architect, and Juster's brother became an architect as well. He served in the United States Navy before settling into his architectural career.
Juster wrote The Phantom Tollbooth (ISBN 0394815009) in the early 1960s while living in Brooklyn, New York. Jules Feiffer, a neighbor of Juster's, did the illustrations.
Although Juster enjoyed writing, his architectural career remained his primary focus.He was also a teacher.
Juster served as a professor of architecture and environmental design at Hampshire College from its first semester in 1970 until his retirement in 1992.
Juster co-founded a small architectural firm, Juster Pope Associates, in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts in 1970. The firm was renamed Juster Pope Frazier after Jack Frazier joined the firm in 1978.
Juster currently lives in Connecticut with his wife. Although he has retired from architecture, he still writes. He has a new book scheduled for publication in 2004.
Books
- The Passing of Irving (his first book, unpublished)
- The Phantom Tollbooth (ISBN 0394815009)
- The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (ISBN 1587170663)
- Alberic the Wise and Other Stories (1965) (ISBN 0887082432)
- Stark Naked: A Paranormal Odyssey (1969) -- illustrated by Arnold Roth
- Otter Nonsense (1982) (ISBN 0399209328) -- illustrated by Eric Carle
- As: A Surfeit of Similes (1989) (ISBN 0688081398)
- So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in America 1865-1895 (editor) (1979) (ISBN 0670654833) -- non-fiction
Other media
Both The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and the Line were adapted into films by animator Chuck Jones.
External links
- Powells.com interview (http://www.powells.com/authors/juster.html)
- Salon.com interview (http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2001/03/12/juster/print.html)
- Underdown.org interview (http://www.underdown.org/juster.htm)