"It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean." -- Norton Juster
Norton Juster (born June 2, 1929) is an American architect and author. He is famous primarily for writing children's books; among them The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and the Line.
"A good book written for children can be read by adults.""And when I'm writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don't necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I'm working on, because they're simply my way of getting to know the characters.""But I find the best things I do, I do when I'm trying to avoid doing something else I'm supposed to be doing. You know, you're working on something. You get bugged, or you lose your enthusiasm or something. So you turn to something else with an absolute vengeance.""I received a grant from The Ford Foundation to write a book for kids about urban perception, or how people experience cities, but I kept putting off writing it. Instead I started to write what became The Phantom Tollbooth.""I remember when I was a kid in school and teachers would explain things to me about what I read, and I'd think, Where did they get that? I didn't read that in there. Later you look at it and think, That's kind of an interesting idea.""I think kids slowly begin to realize that what they're learning relates to other things they know. Then learning starts to get more and more exciting.""I think really good books can be read by anybody.""I write best in the morning, and I can only write for about half a day, that's about it.""One of the problems you have when you read with kids is that once they like something they want you to read it a hundred times.""People always ask about my influences, and they cite a bunch of people I've never heard of.""The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way.""There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction.""When you're very young and you learn something - a fact, a piece of information, whatever - it doesn't connect to anything."
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 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 Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife, Jeanne. Although he has retired from architecture, he still writes. His book The Hello, Goodbye Window, published May 15, 2005, won the Caldecott Medal for Chris Raschka's illustration in 2006. The sequel, Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie, came out in 2008.
Both The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and the Line were adapted into films by animator Chuck Jones. The latter film received the 1965 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
The Phantom Tollbooth was also adapted into a musical by Norton Juster and Sheldon Harnick, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music composed by Arnold Black.
There have been musical settings of a "A Colorful Symphony" from The Phantom Tollbooth for narrator and orchestra and of The Dot and the Line for narrator and chamber ensemble by composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez.
