Meeting Norton Juster

Friday night, the girls and I attended the culminating event of On the Same Page sponsored by the Little Shop of Stories, a great independent children’s bookstore just a couple of blocks from our new home. This year’s book was The Phantom Tollbooth, a book I hadn’t heard of until after Camille was born, but is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

We arrived early enough that the doors were not yet open and joined the queue that had already forned. Soon the doors were opened, and we headed in to find seats. Chloe is short and hates having tall adults blocking her view, so we found a nice place on the aisle on the side where she’d get a great view. The room started to fill, but the crowd wasn’t as large as I had expected it to be, given the “sold out” reports. We saw a number of friends, old and new.

Finally, the talk started. Wow. The talk was an “interview” of Norton Juster by Leonard Marcus, the author of the annotations in the annotated Phantom Tollbooth. Mr. Juster kept us all very entertained with his stories. Even Chloe, who is easily bored, was kept entertained the entire evening. Chloe joined the queue of people, mostly kids, who lined up to ask questions. Unfortunately, the sound system was not very good and the kids had trouble getting Mr. Juster to hear them.

The signing line was very well organized, and we had our few moments with Mr. Juster and Mr. Marcus. A very special evening!!

Norton Juster - 9 dec 2011

Norton Juster - 9 dec 2011

Phantom Tollbooth - 9 dec 2011