It’s Finally Official. He’s a Genius!

By Staff -- School Library Journal, 10/1/2006

David Macaulay, who rocked the children’s lit world with his 1988 best seller, The Way Things Work, and who has written and illustrated 19 other well-received titles, is a winner in this year’s MacArthur Fellows Program. The so-called “genius grant,” which has rarely been given to children’s book authors, carries a no-strings-attached cash prize of $500,000. Macaulay, of course, is no stranger to awards. His works have won the Caldecott Medal and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, among others.

Macaulay, 59, is known for both his whimsy and his detailed research, often on architectural subjects, and his exquisite pen-and-ink drawings. Among his works are City (1974), about the construction of a Roman city; Pyramid (1975), about the pharaohs’ monuments; Castle (1977), about medieval fortresses; and Mosque (2003, all Houghton), about Islam’s places of worship. The Way Things Work garnered the most success for Macaulay. Updated in 1998 (it’s now called The New Way Things Work), the book breaks down such mechanical and electrical mysteries as nuclear fission, zippers, and atom bombs. Macaulay is currently finishing up The Way We Work, a look at the human body, to be published by Houghton Mifflin in the autumn of 2007.