Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Maniac Magee
Book Review: A Classic!
Summary: 5 Stars
Here is another classic for you, Esteemed Reader, and one I never got around to reading as a kid. Too bad. I missed out. I remember the reason I didn't read Maniac Magee then was that I knew it was about race relationships and at the time I was in school teachers shoved stuff about race relationships down our throats nearly every day. As I kid, I figured everybody knew it was a party foul to hate somebody for their skin color--that was something people used to do back in the days of Abraham Lincoln, but which had been neatly resolved somewhere in there. As a white boy living in a small Indiana town of almost all white people, I could afford to think this.
Still, I believe I did have a valid reason for my prejudice against books dealing with race. Reading a book about race relations is often like reading a book one is given at church; it's a safe bet that the final scene of that story will show that doing the right thing and trusting in God is the way to go just as you can bet that if a middle-grade book written in the last twenty years brings up the subject of race, it's likely to point out that racism is wrong.
Well, of course racism is wrong. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and so on. I have been forced to read so many bad books repeating this true, but uninteresting mantra, I have little tolerance for any book that merely reinforces the obvious fact. I submit that after years of such books being thrust upon children, a middle-grade book would almost have to argue in favor of racism to be the least bit fresh (please, no one actually write such a book).
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for more books featuring multicultural characters and I have a vested interest in books featuring interracial families like mine. It's just that the authors of such books need to say something more provocative than "racism is wrong." On the other hand, given the way a certain part of the country has behaved since Barrack Obama was elected president (I'm not talking about policy disagreements), maybe we really do need more "racism is wrong" books--some folks are just slow learners, I guess.
In Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli does indeed successfully argue that racism is bad. But that's not why he won the John Newberry Medal and that's not why I'm going to recommend his book to you. I'm going to recommend Maniac Magee because it is first and foremost a fun story staring a very likeable character. Spinelli's got jokes, so you're going to have a good time, and the book has none of that heavy-handed-after-school-special quality of lesser books dealing with race. More, Spinelli writes description like none other, but more on that in a minute.
There are two great works I'd like to mention in comparison to Maniac Magee: Othello and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Both works feature racism as a motive for characters and as a vehicle for theme, yet speak beyond the mere platitude of racism = wrong. In Othello, Shakespeare is less interested in the fallacy of racist thinking than he is in the fallacy of compositional thinking, defined as assuming the characteristics true of one part of a group are true of a group entire (not true, but the basis of racism, sexism, and the list goes on forever). But Shakespeare uses racism only to illuminate this larger truth, and almost the entire text of Othello concerns itself with faulty thinking by nearly all of the characters, including Big `O' himself. In Huckleberry Finn, racism is again a symptom of a much larger trouble with life in America.
The story of Maniac Magee is thus: Jeffrey Magee's parents die so he goes to live with his aunt and uncle. They hate each other to the point of not speaking, but they're die hard Catholics so they stay married. They live on separate sides of the house and Jeffrey lives between them until he can take it no more and he yells "Talk! Talk, will ya!" That's more or less the theme of Maniac Magee. Jeffrey runs away from home, lives in various places including the zoo. But more importantly, he lives with a black family, and then a white family. He hears each talk about the other and realizes that it is their ignorance of one another that makes them afraid and separate. They are the metaphorical aunt and uncle now and Maniac Magee cannot live among either family until they TALK. Therefore, what might have been a simple "racism is wrong" story becomes a story about an even greater, more universal truth.
Whew. I know this review is too long, but the last thing I have to tell you is that Spinelli is somebody to read if you're looking to hone your descriptions to picture perfect. I can't possibly list all of the great sentences I highlighted in my copy, but I want to share with you a few of his descriptions of a single location. See how effortlessly he depicts this place in so few words:
"Despite the cold, the front door was wide open, and Maniac could smell the inside before he could see it. The first thing he did see was a yellow, short-haired mongrel looking innocently up at him while taking a leak in the middle of the living room floor...
...Cans and bottles lay all over, along with crusts, peelings, cores, scraps, rinds, wrappers--everything you would normally find in a garbage can. And everywhere there were raisins...
...The hole in the ceiling was so big they both (two young boys--M.G.N.) could have jumped through it at once...
...The peeling paint came off like cornflakes...
...The raisins here were even more abundant. He spotted several of them moving. They weren't raisins; they were roaches."
Wow. I think retyping those sentences may have made me a better writer.
Book Review: A Classic, Worthy of Recognition
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up this book back in 3rd grade, and it was the first book that got me in trouble for reading in class. I couldn't put it down. I must have read it once every six months back in elementary school. The story is great, the characters lovable...but the main draw is the ease to identify with the protagonist.
Every kid wants to be, or has felt like, Maniac Magee. I especially recommend this to kids with divorced or deceased parents. When I was little, this book inspired me, and I just know it will inspire generations to come.
Book Review: A Fun, Quick -Read Book
Summary: 4 Stars
"What's true, what's myth? It's hard to know."- Jerry Spinelli
Jeffrey Lionel Magee was only three years old when his parents died. They died in a high-speed trolley crash when the motorman was drunk. He was shipped off to his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan's house in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. His aunt and uncle hated each other and didn't talk to each other at all but they wouldn't get a divorce because they were strict Catholics. Jeffrey had to live with that for eight years. How boring would that be? He finally ran away.
Jeffrey ran and ran and stopped in a town called Two Mills. The west and east ends of the town are divided in half, one side for black families and one side for white. That's pretty racist if you ask me. Jeffrey meets a friend in the east (black) end of town named Amanda Beale. He does a whole bunch of crazy stuff in sports and other things that all of the other kids are afraid to do. To find out exactly how Jeffrey got his nickname "Maniac", you have to read the book.
I learned a lot about how having a strong family is important and that you have to take risks to become recognized and to feel good. It was a pretty fun book.
Book Review: A Good Book with Interesting Events
Summary: 4 Stars
The title of my book is Maniac Magee. The author of the book is Jerry Spinelli. The main characters were Jeffery Magee, also known as Maniac Magee, Amanda Beale, the Pickwell's, John McNab, The cobras, Mars bars, Mrs. Beale, Hester, Lester , MR. Beale , Grayson, Russell, and Piper. One main event was when Maniac untied Cobble's Knot. This was important because no one could untie it. It tells you that Maniac is a good shoe-tier and is good with his hands. Everyone was happy. Another important event is when Maniac lived in the baseball hut with Grayson. I wanted to read this book because it looked like a really good book and I really like adventure books. Audiences all age would like this book because tells you how some people were back then. The theme of this book is "never give up."
This book was good because it showed how some people could be really mean but they always have some good in them. John McNab is really mean and bad but when it came to his brothers he would do anything. The only weak thing about this book is that it has some really crazy things in it. For example Cobbles knot which is a big knot that nobody could get out. Another example of the book being wierd was the name of people: Mars bar, Maniac Magee, and Fish Belly. Those are some crazy names.
Overall, this book is really good -- it has up's and down's. I recommend this book to everyone because it is a good book. It is not bad and it is a fun book to read. It is both funny and sad because some Hester and Lester won't take a bath without Maniac Magee, but sad because Grayson dies.
Jamison G.
Book Review: A Great Adventure
Summary: 5 Stars
The Newberry Award book I picked was sad because people did not like a little boy. They did not like him because he was white, and he lived with black people. The family he lived with did not care what color he was. He was really good with really good with the little ones. They did what they were told. They now get a bath only with Amanda their sister. My favorite part was when they had a huge party with all of the people they lived around.