David Macaulay, America’s “Explainer-in-chief”

Confession: I’m just mad about the mammoth, the one that wandered out of the Ice Age into one of author-illustrator David Macaulay’s books – where he found his purpose in life (if that’s a mammoth thing) helping Macaulay explain the way things work to kids.

“I was desperate to find a humorous way of explaining levers,” said Macaulay, who realized levers have probably been around for a long time. “So, I put the mammoth on the end of the log, and put the log on the rock to have a fulcrum, and the villagers on this end of the lever. The problem that had to be solved was, what does the mammoth weigh? So, it’s as simple as that!”

Since it came out in 1988, “The Way Things Work” has sold more than a million copies around the world. Mammoth (and a whole herd of his friends) have made their way into other Macaulay books as well.

Asked how many mammoths he thinks he’s drawn, Macaulay replied, “It’s like 43,272, I believe. That’s just a guess.”

With or without the help of mammoths, but always with a sense of humor, Macaulay has come to be known as “America’s Explainer-in-chief.” He is a multi-award-winning star in the children’s picture book world and a Macarthur “genius grant” recipient, having explained all kinds of things in more than two dozen books over the course of his 50+ year career: the human body … cathedrals … castles … toilets … the pyramids … ships … the city of Rome.

“I miss Rome,” he said. “I think about it often, and I think about particular streets and places in Rome.”

As an architecture student at the Rhode Island School of Design, Macaulay spent a year there. Born in England, he moved to the United States at the age of ten with his family.

An ongoing exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., explores the messiness of creating a book. It is toplined, literally, as chaos: “Chaos, that’s where this process started, and in fact it’s where all my books start,” he said. “This whole thing [depicts] the inside of my brain, and those clouds floating overhead were an attempt to sort of suggest some of that, you know, the things that go through your mind when you think, This is not going to work.”

“Some of these look like procrastination,” I said.

“Oh, procrastination is my gift,” said Macaulay. “I always find that in the end, if I’m using my imagination, if I’m asking the right questions, then the procrastination is working in my favor. I just have to keep drawing.”

And drawing … and drawing. The exhibits features just some of the drawings he produced while he was figuring out who would be the ideal tour guide of Rome with the perfect point of view. “Why not a pigeon carrying a message from somebody who lives outside the city to someone who lives inside the city? And it took the scenic route, which was ideal.”

Early one fall morning, Macaulay brought us to the Ledyard Bridge. On one aside, Vermont; over there, New Hampshire, the Connecticut River in-between. He began sketching the bridge: “The weight of all of this is supported on this arch, and transferred into these piers,” he said.

He wanted us to realize that, for him, sketching is seeing. Sketching is a language for understanding. “We look at things, but do we actually see them?” he said. “What better way to spend time with a structure like this than with a sketchbook in your hand, looking at specific details? I think that’s my goal in a way, is to have people open their eyes to the ordinary, to the everyday, to the things they take for granted.”

Like the sorts of things, both man-made and natural, that Macaulay sees when he walks his dogs, Maya and Minnow, in Norwich, Vt., where he lives.

His storyboard details the objects that hold his fascination: “Once she’s stopped and I’m holding the leash, I think, ‘I wonder how many pieces of wood are in that fence? Wonder how it’s fastened together?'”

Walks with Stella, his beloved previous dog, are the basis for the book he’s working on now. What’s starting to take shape on his wall is David Macaulay’s stealth attempt to hook kids on the wonder right before their eyes.  “I thought maybe I can create a book that will help them connect,” he said. “What better way to do that than to maybe use myself as an example?”

It’s the first time his work has ever been this personal and introspective. At 78, this time, the point of view is his own. 

But why? And why now? “My sort of conscience, perhaps a little bit, a little payback here after all these years of being able to do what I want, really, and be successful at it, be rewarded for it,” he said. “It’s time to maybe pay that off.”

      
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Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: Chad Cardin.

      
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Martha Teichner

Martha Teichner is a correspondent for “CBS News Sunday Morning.” Since 1993, she has reported on a wide range of issues, including politics, the arts, culture, science, and social issues impacting our world.