As reported by Deadline, author Norton Juster – best known for writing iconic and beloved children’s books The Phantom Tollbooth and The dot and the line-is deceased. Juster’s death was confirmed by his publisher, Penguin Random House, and An NPR report says he died of complications related to a recent stroke. He was 91.
Juster was born in Brooklyn in 1929 and follows in the footsteps of his father and brother (who were both architects) by studying urban planning and architecture at the university. He joined the Navy Civil Engineer Corps in the 1950s, where he began writing and illustrating stories. After leaving the army, he worked as an architect and was able to combine his two interests when he received an award to write a ‘book on cities for children’ (as he puts it in this NPR piece). Juster realizes that after ‘getting his waist deep in piles of 3-to-5 notebooks, he was exhausted and upset’ want to write a children’s book about cities and decided to write something that would attract the kind of “quiet, introverted and moody” child he was.
From there, Juster began writing a book about a constantly bored and disinterested boy named Milo, who one day returns from school and finds a mysterious package containing a card called ‘The Lands Beyond’ and a small toll booth. . From there, he begins an adventure with a word game with a literal watchdog that is extremely enjoyable and informal – not only in the sense that it teaches children many exciting new words and ideas, but that it actually teaches about things fun. That book, The Phantom Tollbooth, is now considered an absolute classic of children’s literature, which has sold millions of copies and been translated into several other languages. It was also adapted into a Chuck Jones animated film, although Juster himself was not a fan of it (in 2011, he told The AV Club that Jones treated the book “like the Holy Grail” and refused to change anything of the text, even if it would have made a better film).
The Phantom Tollbooth was actually Jones’ second adaptation of a Juster book, The Other Essence The point and the line: a romance in lower mathematics. The book, published in 1963, is about a straight line that falls in love at some point, only to find out that the dot is in love with a bickering. If he wants to improve himself, the line learns how to bend, and changes its shape in new and complicated ways. Eventually, the line impresses the dot with its newfound appreciation for change, while the bickering permanently sits like a mess, leading to another excellent pun: “To the vector belongs the loot.” Jones ‘adaptation (although some believe that the short was actually directed by Jones’ longtime collaborator, Maurice Noble), won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film and, as The Phantom Tollbooth—Has become a staple of classrooms.
Yesterday’s other works include 2005s The Hello, Goodbye Window and its continuation of 2008, Sourpuss And Sweetie Pie, both (as he explained in that same AV Club maintenance) was inspired by his granddaughter. Despite writing one of the most valued and beloved children’s books of all time, Juster continued to work as an architect until he retired.
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