SLIS 5420 Maniac Magee

Week Three: Newbery Award - Maniac Magee 

Book Summary: 

            At three years old, Jeffery Magee was orphaned when his parents died in a famous trolley crash.  He lived, unhappily, with his closest living relatives, an unhappy aunt and uncle, until in the middle of a school program eight years later when he yelled and screamed at them to talk to each other before running out the door and away for good.  Jeffery Magee ran for ages, until he finally found a family and home in the unlikely place of East End, the side where only blacks lived, of Two Mills. 

             Jeffery takes a journey from the point when he escapes his unhappy life with his aunt and uncle, thus becoming homeless.  Throughout Jeffery Magee’s journey, myths swirled around him because he could hit baseballs thrown by John McNab (who could strike out anyone), he could untie an unruly knot know to any child’s shoe, and he was allergic to pizza.  People noticed Jeffery Magee was not a normal kid.  Jeffery could see the good in people regardless of age, race, socioeconomics, or any other factors that so many others considered important.  Plus, he could run, and did, for miles.  All of these reasons, and more, cause others to start calling Jeffery Maniac, and so it stuck.

         

APA Reference: 

Spinelli, J. (1990). Maniac Magee. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.   

My Impressions: 

            There were so many Newberry award winning books I wanted to read for this week, but I choose Maniac Magee because this past year I had several 7^th grade students talking about how much they loved reading it in 6^th grade.  I thought it would be good to know what they loved about it.

            As I started, I wasn’t immediately drawn in, but I could see how my students may have liked it.  By the middle of the book, when the race relations had really heated up, I totally understood why my kids loved this book.  I teach in a fairly low socioeconomic school with kids of every racial background imaginable; this book talked to them, and about them.  Although this book is set in a time period when towns were divided by imaginary lines, and people of one race did not cross to the side where another race lived, a lot of truth still exists around the racism Jeffery Magee faced both when he lived on the East End and the West.  I was especially intrigued that one of the strongest comments of racism directed at Magee came from an older black man from the East End.  Although the West End had it's share of people who thought the blacks from the East End were going to attack one day, so they might as well protect themselves, this man simply felt that if the white people didn’t want him on their side, Magee shouldn’t be on his.  So he told him to go back, and eventually it causes Magee to leave the only place he has ever felt at home. 

            Of course, Magee finds other places to stay and other people to live with, but it is never quite as wonderful as the Beale’s house.  He does come close when he finds a grandfatherly figure in Grayson, but it is short lived and the heartbreak Grayson’s death causes Magee is almost too much to bear, for him and the reader. 

            Overall, my impressions of Maniac Magee are favorable.  I feel like it is a palatable story for kids, but still brings up important issues that affect their lives.  Since it is told in a format that is part tall tale and part fictionalized biography, it is easier to read parts that could be difficult.  This is a good book for older elementary and middle school students, especially those in lower socioeconomic areas.             

A Favorite Quote: 

“Maniac kept trying, but he still couldn’t see it, this color business.  He didn’t figure he was white anymore than the East Enders were black.  He looked himself over pretty hard and came up with at least seven different shades and colors right on his own skin, not one of them being what he would call white.” (Spinelli, p. 58)

Professional Review: 

          Gr 6-10-- Warning: this interesting book is a mythical story about racism. It should not be read as reality. Legend springs up about Jeffrey ``Maniac'' Magee, a white boy who runs faster and hits balls farther than anyone, who lives on his own with amazing grace, and is innocent as to racial affairs. After running away from a loveless home, he encounters several families, in and around Two Mills, a town sharply divided into the black East End and the white West End. Black, feisty Amanda Beale and her family lovingly open their home to Maniac, and tough, smart-talking ``Mars Bar'' Thompson and other characters are all, to varying degrees, full of prejudices and unaware of their own racism. Racial epithets are sprinkled throught the book; Mars Bar calls Maniac ``fishbelly,'' and blacks are described by a white character as being ``today's Indians.'' In the final, disjointed section of the book, Maniac confronts the hatred that perpetuates ignorance by bringing Mars Bar to meet the Pickwells--``the best the West End had to offer.'' In the feel-good ending, Mars and Maniac resolve their differences; Maniac gets a home and there is hope for at least improved racial relations. Unreal? Yes. It's a cop-out for Spinelli to have framed this story as a legend--it frees him from having to make it real, or even possible. Nevertheless, the book will stimulate thinking about racism, and it might help educate those readers who, like so many students, have no first-hand knowledge of people of other races. Pathos and compassion inform a short, relatively easy-to-read story with broad appeal, which suggests that to solve problems of racism, people must first know each other as individuals. --Joel Shoemaker, Tilford Middle School, Vinton, IA

Shoemaker, J. (June 1990). Maniac Magee [Review of the book Maniac Magee by J. Spinelli]. School Library Journal, 36,  
          138. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/

Library Uses: 

In a school setting, after reading the book in class, the library could hold a “book club” discussion continuing with activities inspired by the book.  There could be a massive knot-untying contest (between classes or teams) where the winner gets a pizza party, of course, because pizza was Maniac’s prize.   There could also be short sprinting races or reading while walking “races” to mimic other things Manic does throughout the book.