David Macaulay was born on December 2, 1946, and he was eleven when his family moved from England to Bloomfield, New Jersey. During the time he was adjusting to the faster pace of the city, he learned that he enjoyed drawing. After he graduated from high school, he enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he earned his bachelor's degree in architecture. He spent a fifth year there in the European Honors Program, and had the opportunity to study abroad in Italy, visiting the ancient cities of Rome, Pompeii, and Herculaneum.
After working as an interior designer, a junior high school teacher, and a teacher at RISD, Macaulay began to try his hand at writing and illustrating books. He published his first book, Cathedral, in 1973. Since then, he has created spectacular works on various subjects — including the construction of a Roman city (City), the erection of the monuments to the pharaohs (Pyramid), and the building of medieval fortresses (Castle), among others. He has also written picture books such as Rome Antics, Shortcut, and his Caldecott winner, Black and White. In addition, Macaulay is the creator of the international bestseller The Way Things Work, and its updated version, The New Way Things Work. In 2000, he Building Big, the companion book to the PBS series, which describes the engineering necessary to build structrues such as bridges, tunnels, and skyscrapers.
Time magazine once wrote, "What he draws he draws better than any other pen-and-ink illustrator in the world." His books have sold more than two million copies in the United States alone, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. Five of his titles, Cathedral, Castle, City, Pyramid, and Mill have been made into popular PBS television programs. Macaulay has received a number of awards: the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award, an American Institute of Architects Medal, the Washington Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award, the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, and a Dutch Silver Slate Pencil Award. He was a two-time nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and is the recipient of the Bradford Washburn Award, presented by the Museum of Science in Boston to an outstanding contributor to science.
David Macaulay currently lives with his family in Rhode Island.
(This information has been taken, paraphrased, and used for educational purposes only from the Houghton-Mifflin Website, www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/macaulay)