SOURCE CITATION
"Norton Juster." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Norton Juster is a practicing architect, a talented wordsmith, and a popular writer of juvenile books. His story The Phantom Tollbooth made the New York Times list of best-selling books for children in 1962, and in 1966 was included in that paper's list of the fifty best children's books of the previous five years. Diane Manuel commented in the New York Times Book Review that "this is a book that could help sell youngsters on the devilish delights of well-turned phrases."

Juster was born on June 2, 1929, in Brooklyn, New York. There he attended Public School #99 and James Madison High School before studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1952 he won a Fulbright fellowship, which took him to England, where he studied city planning at the University of Liverpool.

From 1954 to 1957 Juster served in the United States Navy; his assignments included legal officer, personnel officer, and education officer in the Civil Engineering Corps, helping to build airfields in Morocco and Newfoundland. Following his military service he worked as an architect. In 1959, he began writing stories as a form of relaxation, but soon was hooked.

Juster is best known for The Phantom Tollbooth, which has been compared to Alice in Wonderland as well as been called "a modern day Pilgrim's Progress" in Who's Who in Children's Literature. In this tale, the Tollbooth appears mysteriously in the room of a bored schoolboy named Milo. Milo drives his pedal car past the Tollbooth into a fantasy world, the Kingdom of Wisdom, where all is not well. The brothers Azaz, king of the word-oriented Dictionopolis, and Mathemagician, king of the numbers-oriented Digitopolis, are allegories for subjects Milo has studied in school. The brothers were once able to get along well together, with the intercession of their sisters Rhyme and Reason. But when the sisters once could not decide whether words or numbers were the most important, they found themselves banished to a Castle in the Air. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Milo enlists the aid of a cast of humorous and allegorical characters as he sets off on his quest to free the princesses. With the help of the "Official Which," Tock, the very literal clock, and the bug named Humbug, Milo rescues the Princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Mountains of Ignorance and brings meaning back to words and numbers. Reviewing a 1996 edition of the book, Carol A. Burdbridge stated in Book Report that it "has become a modern classic." Burdbridge further mentioned that the books "has delighted young and old with Juster's humorous writing style and his wonderful play on words." A contributor for St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers noted that The Phantom Tollbooth "has proven to be timeless." The same contributor further explained: "This fantasy novel presents a rare combination of a convincing, well-rounded secondary world with a rollicking use of wordplay that proves both entertaining and provocative."

Juster is also the author of The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, about a sensible straight line falling in love with a frivolous dot and trying to woo her away from her current beau, a lazy squiggle. Reviewing a 2001 reprint of that popular title, a writer for Publishers Weekly called the tale "poignant yet humorous," and promised that "much merriment will be had by all before the hero gets his girl." His Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys is a group of three stories reminiscent of fairy tales; it was chosen by the American Institute of Graphic Arts as one of the ten children's books to appear in their "Fifty Books of the Year" show in 1966. A fable on the nature of wisdom and success, Alberic the Wise tells of a wisdom-seeking simple country youth and his adventures in discovering knowledge. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly felt the tale was "overlong" for a picture book, but praised Juster's "compelling prose, elevated without being lofty," which "will draw in advanced readers." "Ultimately," wrote the same contributor, "this multi-faceted and sophisticated tale about art, wisdom and life itself may find its most appreciative audience with adults." Juster's other books include Otter Nonsense, published in 1982, and As: A Surfeit of Similes, which School Library Journal reviewer Michael Cart called "as clever as paint!"

Through his well-received books for young readers, Juster has developed a reputation as a "talented and ingenious" wordsmith, Cart noted.

In addition to his books for young readers, Juster has also written two adult titles, including So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in American 1865-1895. An Emeritus Professor of Design at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, Juster is also an architect at his firm, Juster-Pope-Frazier Associates, work which takes much of his creative energy.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born June 2, 1929, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Samuel H. (an architect) and Minnie (Silberman) Juster; married Jeanne Ray (a graphic designer), August 15, 1964; children: Emily. Avocation: Gardening, bicycling, reading. Education: University of Pennsylvania, B. of Arch., 1952; University of Liverpool, graduate study, 1952-53. Addresses: Home--259 Lincoln Ave., Amherst, MA 01002. Agent--Sterling Lord Literistic, 1 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER
Juster & Gugliotta, New York, NY, architect, 1960-68; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, professor of environmental design, 1960-70; Juster-Pope-Frazier Associates, Shelburne Falls, MA, architect, 1969--; Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, professor of design, 1970-1992, Emeritus Professor of Design, 1992--. Military service: U.S. Naval Reserve, Civil Engineer Corps, active duty, 1954-57.