David Macaulay English Author and Illustrator of Books for Children and Creator of Cathedral, The Way Things Work, and The Way We Work

Transcription

1 David Macaulay English Author and Illustrator of Books for Children and Creator of Cathedral, The Way Things Work, and The Way We Work DAVID MACAULAY WAS BORN on December 2, 1946, in Burton-on-Trent, a city in northern England. His parents were James and Joan Macaulay. His father was an engineer and his mother was a homemaker. David is one of three children, and has a sister and a brother. 18

2 DAVID MACAULAY GREW UP in the town of Bolton, where he lived with his family in a small house. He recalls that they spent lots of time together in the kitchen. There, his parents fired their children s imagination with the joy and fascination of making things. His parents taught him woodworking, drawing, knitting, and sewing. Soon, David was making things, and taking them apart, too. It was the start of his lifelong fascination with how things work. David s parents also read to their children, and David loved it. His favorite books included Robinson Crusoe and Ned the Lonely Donkey. DAVID MACAULAY WENT TO SCHOOL at Bolton Elementary School. He was a good student, and very good at a subject that isn t really studied anymore: penmanship, the ability to write cursive. David was so good at it that he won a national award. When David was 11, his family moved to the United States. They lived in New Jersey for a few years, then moved to Cumberland, Rhode Island. David went to the public schools, and by the time he got to high school, he was pretty well known for his drawings of famous people. His pencil sketches of the Beatles were favorites with his friends. After high school, Macaulay went to college at the 19

3 Rhode Island School of Design, called RISD. There, he studied architecture the art and science of building. He loved his classes, and in his last year, traveled to Italy to study. The buildings of ancient Rome and the cathedrals of the Middle Ages fascinated him. He graduated with a degree in architecture in FIRST JOBS: Macaulay didn t have a job as an architect after college. Instead, he worked at a variety of jobs. He taught art at a junior high school. He did drawings for an interior design company. And he started teaching at RISD. He taught drawing and illustration at the school for 25 years. Macaulay was a wonderful teacher. He taught his students that seeing meant looking and thinking. He encouraged them to ask themselves why things look the way they do. He wanted them to learn the difference between what they see and what they think they see. That way, they could create their own art, out of their own visions. STARTING TO CREATE BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS: After a few years of teaching, Macaulay decided to try creating books. He chose children s books, he says, because it looked like the people doing that were having the most fun. His first book, Cathedral, grew out of an idea he had 20

4 for a fantasy story. Set hundreds of years ago, it featured a little boy who gets locked into an ancient cathedral, where the gargoyles come to life. 21

5 Macaulay took the book to a man named Walter Lorraine at Houghton Mifflin publishers. Lorraine reviewed the book, and told Macaulay to focus his book on the cathedral instead of the boy. CATHEDRAL: The result was Macaulay s first book, Cathedral, published in He reveals the wonders of how architects in the Middle Ages planned and built the amazing churches of their time. The words and drawings show in great detail just what goes into constructing a cathedral. Set in an imaginary French town almost 700 years ago, the book was a favorite with readers young and old. They were eager for more from Macaulay. CITY, PYRAMID, and UNDERGROUND: Macaulay continued to explore the wonders of how things are put together. City tells the story of how a Roman town was built. Pyramid goes back to the times of the ancient Pharoahs of Egypt, and describes the building of those massive, fascinating structures. Underground explores what happens beneath the streets of a modern city, showing how subways, electrical systems, and sewers work. CASTLE and MILL: In Castle, Macaulay returns to the Middle Ages. He explains how both a castle, and the town that surrounds it, were built hundreds of years ago. Readers follow along as Macaulay outlines, step-bystep, just how these ancient structures came to be. Mill features the day-to-day workings of a New England mill 22

6 town. Set in the 19 th century, the book tells the story of how mills are built, and how mill towns grew around them. 23

7 THE WAY THINGS WORK: One of Macaulay s bestknown books is The Way Things Work, first published in It describes how hundreds of machines are put together, and the way they work. In diagrams and simple explanations, Macaulay shows how something as simple as a lever, and as complex as a space ship, works. Throughout the book, Macaulay places funny drawings of wooly mammoths to explain the science behind the machines. Once again, readers young and old loved the book, and learned a lot, too. It was so popular that Macaulay published an updated edition in 1998, The New Way Things Work. BLACK AND WHITE: In 1990, Macaulay published Black and White. In the book, he tells four stories at the same time. Each story develops on each two-page spread. The reader has to figure out how the individual stories work, and how they work together. Young readers loved the book, and so did older ones. Macaulay won the Caldecott Medal for Black and White. That s one of the most important awards for an illustrator of children s books. ON FILM: In 2000, Macaulay hosted and narrated a television series called Building Big. In it, he took viewers on a tour of the world s biggest structures: bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers, domes, and dams. He and his crew traveled to four continents to film the series. Once again, he showed viewers the science behind some of 24

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9 the world s greatest structures. It was a great success. It was full of information, and funny, too. It showed Macaulay to be, as he described himself, an explainer first and an entertainer second. He later published a book based on the series, Building Big. MOSQUE: In 2003, Macaulay published a book called Mosque. It details the building of a mosque, a place of worship for Muslims. The story takes place in a fictional town in Turkey, in the 1500s. Macaulay says he was moved to write the book after the attacks of September 11, He wanted to show how mosques, like other religious structures, are among humankind s proudest accomplishments. He shows how the mosque functions among all the buildings of the community. It helps unite all the people, of all faiths and backgrounds, of the city. THE WAY WE WORK: Macaulay s most recent book is called The Way We Work. In it, he explores another remarkable structure: the human body. He starts his examination with the body s basic building block: the cell. Then he explores how cells get food and get rid of waste. Next, Macaulay explains the circulation system how blood flows through the body. Then he s on to the digestive system how what we eat gets turned into energy. He describes how energy is used, by the bones and muscles. He covers some of the most complex systems, including the brain and the nervous system. Then 26

10 he goes on to reproduction: how a human life starts, as a cell. And that brings the book full circle, back to the beginning, of life, and of the book. 27

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12 Macaulay worked on The Way We Work for six years. Because he s not a scientist, he asked a science writer named Richard Walker to write the text. That way, he could concentrate on telling his story with pictures. Once again, readers of all ages loved the book. WHERE DOES HE GET HIS IDEAS? Macaulay s ideas come from his lifelong fascination with the way things work. And even though his books are usually considered for children, his fans range in age from eight to 80. I ve never thought about the ages of my readers, he says. I always think about how I would understand it. DAVID MACAULAY S HOME AND FAMILY: Macaulay has been married three times. His first wife s name is Janice Elizabeth Michel. They have one daughter, Elizabeth. After they divorced, Macaulay married again. That marriage also ended in divorce. He met his third wife, Ruthie Murray, when he was teaching at RISD. They live in Norwich, Vermont, with their two children. Macaulay creates his books in a studio on the second floor of the house. It s a nice big space with oak floors and high ceilings, he says. One of the best things about the space is the big blank wall at one end. When I m working on a book, I m constantly putting sketches on the wall so I can compare them easily with each other. 29

13 QUOTE I consider myself first and foremost an illustrator, someone who makes things clear through pictures and teaches through pictures. SOME OF DAVID MACAULAY S WORKS: Cathedral City Pyramid Underground Castle Motel of the Mysteries Mill Electricity Why the Chicken Crossed the Road The Way Things Work Black and White Ship Building Big Mosque The Way We Work 30

14 FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT DAVID MACAULAY: Write: David Macaulay c/o Houghton Mifflin Children s Books, 8th Floor 222 Berkeley Street Boston, MA WORLD WIDE WEB SITES: author.html 31