On one level, avoidance of informed looking and thinking results merely in inappropriate architecture, endless rows of neon signs, advertising agencies, political marketing consultants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Barbie dolls, and Hallmark cards--in general, mediocrity. But on another, much deeper level, it threatens to turn us into isolated, insensitive, incapable, and ultimately helpless victims of a world of increasing complexity and decreasing humanity."
A Creative Child
Macaulay has been fascinated with the way the world works since his childhood. Born in Burton-on-Trent, England, in 1946, Macaulay was one of three children of an engineer who specialized as a textile machine technician. The author spent his early years in Bolton in a working-class neighborhood where the rows of houses all looked the same. Macaulay's resourceful parents had a penchant for making things rather than buying them. All the children learned to sew, and Macaulay learned to draw and make models and contraptions out of cardboard, yarn, tape, and string. When Macaulay was seven, "he received a Mechano Set--the English Erector Set--that was too advanced for him but that he was determined to use anyway," reported fellow children's book author Chris Van Allsburg in a Horn Book article.
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