Renowned Children’s Author Norton Juster Passes

Norton Juster, author of children’s classics such as 1961’s The Phantom Tollbooth, 1963’s The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, and more recently 2010’s The Odious Ogre, passed away on March 8 at the age of 91.

An architect by training in addition to being a notable children’s author, Juster owned and operated an architecture firm in Shelburne Falls, MA. He also taught architecture and environmental design at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, for many years. The college, coincidentally, is home to the Eric Carle Museum, an institution dedicated to another noted children’s author. Juster’s architecture firm designed the Eric Carle Museum. Carle, a friend and contemporary of Juster’s, illustrated Juster’s Otter Nonsense in 1982.

A native of New York City, Juster’s works have been adapted into plays, musicals, and even an Academy Award-winning short film. His books are notable for their clever plays on words and their famous illustrators. Besides Carle, his first and last children’s books were illustrated by Jules Feiffer, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist and leading American satirist, and Chris Raschka, who won the Caldecott Medal for illustrating Juster’s 2005 book The Hello, Goodbye Window.

Check out one of Norton Juster’s beloved books by reserving a copy with your library card from the Library’s online catalog.