In 2006, Macaulay was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellows Program award and received the Caldecott Medal in 1991 for his book Black and White, published in 1990.

The September 11 attacks motivated Macaulay to create Mosque to show how the traditions of major religions have more in common than they have dividing them.

[8] Cathedral, City, Pyramid, Castle, and Mill were later adapted into documentaries with animated period drama segments produced by Unicorn Productions, each of which aired sporadically on PBS from 1983 to 1994.

Illustrations in The Way Things Work depict cave people and woolly mammoths operating giant-sized versions of the devices he is explaining.

[17] Macaulay considers concealing technology's inner mechanics as a growing problem for society, and aims to fight this trend with his work.

[19] Anne Gilroy, a clinical anatomist in the departments of surgery and cell biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, consulted on the book.

She said of Macaulay, "His remarkable curiosity and meticulous research led him into some of the most complicated facets of the human body yet he tells this story with simplicity, ingenuity and humor.

It was on display from 2013 but painted over in 2017 because the Rhode Island Department of Transportation could no longer repair it after constant graffiti tagging.