Maniac Magee
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| Author | Jerry Spinelli |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Little, Brown |
| Released | April 2, 1990 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 184 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-80722-2 |
Maniac Magee is a novel written by Jerry Spinelli and was published in 1990. It won the 1991 Newbery Medal. Jerry Spinelli is the author of dozens of other children's books, including Wringer, which received the Newbery Honor, as well as Crash, Space Station Seventh Grade, Stargirl, and Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush?
Maniac Magee, like many of his other books, writes his story to entertain young readers while at the same time helping them to understand many important life lessons. In Maniac Magee, the lessons primarily deal with racial and other prejudices and the importance of friends and family. The lessons are easy for children to understand and apply, making a larger impact in young minds. In addition, his story-telling occurs in the fashion of a playground gossip, positing that the reader has already heard of the famous Maniac Magee and the author is merely setting out to tell the true story of the boy. Over the course of the novel, this frame slips into an omniscient narrative, more suited to the serious events that occur.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
12-year-old Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee, an orphan who is homeless and is a baseball superstar, can run very fast on railroad tracks, and is able to soothe racial tensions in his town of Two Mills. Two Mills is divided between the African-Americans and whites by Hector Street (Blacks on East End, Whites on West End). The racial tensions in this book are very strong. Maniac is very confused by the racial biases; to him, the people are simply people; heterogeneous but having much in common, such as kindness and cruelty.
Jeffrey's parents were killed in a trolley accident when he was three; he spent the next eight years in the bizarre household of his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan. In essence, they lived in the same house without speaking to each other, using Jeffrey as their go-between.
After one year, Jeffrey arrived in Two Mills. There, he quickly befriended numerous people on both sides of the unofficial segregation. Among them were a contemporary of his, an African-American girl called Amanda Beale, with whose family he lived for several seasons; James Down, known as "Hands", a sport player who was vastly impressed by Jeffrey's own speed, dexterity, and agility; and the Samaritan family of Valerie Pickwell. In addition, Jeffrey proceeded to outdo a gang of bullies, sit on the doorstep of a mysterious, reclusive, and notoriously ill-tempered neighbor called Finsterwald, untie a Gordian Knot, and stand up honestly to a frightened boy, nicknamed Mars Bar, who covered his own fear by frightening all other children.
Later, Jeffrey was startled into the realization of his own difference from the African-Americans with whom he lives. As a result, he flees the town and hides in the bisons' enclosure of the local zoölogical park. The bison, a mother and a calf, accept Jeffrey freely. One day, he is injured in leaping over a fence. A passing hired hand called Earl Grayson rescues the boy and offers him shelter. The two become fast friends. Jeffrey and Grayson live together through most of the Winter in the equipment room of a gymnasium, creating a nearly Utopian life of interdependence and mutual learning. Jeffrey learns that Grayson was once a Minor League Baseball player, forced to retire after a spectacular failure that came in the wake of a sequence of victories. Grayson, in turn, learns to read, which he had neglected through childhood. After Christmas, Grayson dies in his sleep.
Jeffrey, heartbroken, flees to Valley Forge and there waits to die. He is prevented from dying by two runaway boys, Piper and Russell McNab, whom he bribes into going home. While they are eating at a pizza-vendor's site in Two Mills, the boys' elder brother John appears. This John is an extremely tall bully who was humiliated in a baseball game by Jeffrey. For returning the younger duo, John forgives Jeffrey and takes him home. In the house of McNab, Jeffrey sees gluttony, squalor, racial prejudice, sloth, and ill-feeling in many ways. He attempts to correct the status quo by bribing the youngest McNabs into good behavior and bringing a guest to Piper's birthday party; that guest being "Mars Bar" Thompson, the East End's most harsh child. The introduction of Mars Bar to the McNabs seems to end in disaster, but teaches Jeffrey a valuable lesson about his friend's character.
Due to struggles that result from his unique social position-- that of a homeless integrator-- Jeffrey leaves the McNabs and roams all over the town, sleeping where he might and running at his own great pace through the streets in the early morning. At similar times, Mars Bar also goes running; when he meets Jeffrey, they run parallel, acknowledging one another in looks but not in words. Minutely sensitive were they to each other.
On one such occasion, their run is interrupted by the younger McNabs, who are in danger of their lives. Because the danger is being crushed by a trolley of the very line that Jeffrey's parents died in, Jeffrey walks away without rescuing the children. Mars Bar rescues them instead. Because they will not let go of him, Mars Bar takes them to his own house, where his mother lavishes her kindness upon them.
Jeffrey has hidden in the bisons' enclosure. Mars Bar finds him there and tells him the story, asking why Jeffrey did not venture out to rescue the little boys. Having found out, he invites Jeffrey to visit his family. Jeffrey refuses.
On hearing of this refusal, Amanda Beale (who has and does look on Jeffrey's welfare as her own responsibility, being moved by primarily maternal instincts) storms into the zoo and drags her friend out of it. She insists that Jeffrey become a permanent resident in her house. Jeffrey accepts.
[edit] Pennsylvania References
This book has several hints at its southeastern Pennsylvania setting:
- Acme, a store found in Philadelphia and its surrounding area, is mentioned.
- The Elmwood Park Zoo. Jeffrey sleeps with the deer for a few nights there. The Elmwood Park Zoo is located in Norristown.
- Tastykake butterscotch Krimpets. Tastykake is based in Philadelphia.
- The Schuylkill River. This river flows from the Appalachian Mountains in Central Pennsylvania before joining the Delaware River in Philadelphia.
- Valley Forge. Maniac stays in Valley Forge for a night. It says in the book that Valley Forge is 5 or 6 miles from Two Mills.
- Hector Street. A street in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, which is next to Norristown.Was a real boundary between African American and White residents.
[edit] Television film adaptation
In 2003, a television film of Maniac Magee was made on the Nickelodeon network. The film stars then child actors Michael Angarano, Orlando Brown, and Kyla Pratt.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Number the Stars |
Newbery Medal recipient 1991 |
Succeeded by Shiloh |
