Maniac Magee

Rating:
Summary: highly enjoyable and educational
Review: We are currently reading this book in an Israeli English speakers 6th grade class. Everyone is enjoying the book and finding alot to discuss after each reading session. We look forward to reading other books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for learning about courage
Review: In Maniac Magee, author Jerry Spinelli gives us an unflinching first-person account of a homeless boy, Jeffrey, and how he learns to cope with prejudice and racism. Orphaned at age three when his parents die in a railroad crash, Jeffrey runs away from the unhappily married relatives he has been living with for eight difficult years.

Jeffrey is a larger-than-life character whose amazing skills as a runner, a person who can untie any knot, and hit fastballs like few who have come before, are the stuff of local legend. But what students find most compelling is the way Jeffrey interacts with the assorted characters he meets in his travels and how, through summoning his own courage, Jeffrey is able to help resolve long-standing racial tensions between two towns.

Teachers and curriculum directors in the Boston Public Schools have been so impressed by the powerful themes in Taking Sides that they have selected it as one of six core novels for sixth graders as part of the Max Warburg Courage Curriculum. The other five novels are: Taking Sides, Number the Stars, Bridge to Terabithia, So Far from the Bamboo Grove, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. As with Maniac Magee, each novel addresses the theme of courage--different types of courage, what it takes to act courageously, and how even small acts of courage can have enormous consequences in everyday life.

I highly recommend Maniac Magee as a book that will offer adolescent readers new insights into prejudice and how, with perseverance, it can be overcome.

Rating:
Summary: Whimsical and a joy to read
Review: 6 years ago when i was in 3rd grade i read this wonderful book...many times! It has a deepr meaning about racism and such i realized later on but what attracted me was the sheer ingenious style of writing the extremely creative and humorous writing style and the tale that is told, i still think back to it and it makes me smile mars bars :) hehe

Rating:
Summary: "Maniac" Magee is just your ordainary 10-year-old
Review: Manic Magee is a wonderful and exciting book about a boy, who when his mother and father dies, when he was a little boy, goes to live with his Aunt and Uncle. Soon, he figures out that he needs to get away from all of this, and he escapes all of the chains that were at his Aunt and Uncles house, and runs back to New Town. Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee was not an ordinary 10-year-old. He can hit a home run ball off the best pitcher in town, He can outrun anyone on train tracks, he can even tie and untie a knot that is impossible for a lot of people to do. This small little town called New Town was Maniacs home, but there are two sections of it; the whites and the blacks. He starts to live with a black family for quite some time, to get away from all of the discrimination. Jerry Spinelli creates a wonderful story, which won the 1993 Newbery Medal. I would have to say that this is a marvelous book, which shows how "maniac" finds friends, and sometimes loses them, but he lives it through, and does not think that life is over. Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee is a wonderful and interesting character to read about, which you never know what troubles he would get into next, or what adventure he would lead himself into.

Rating:
Summary: A great books for kids of all ages!
Review: This book is a very exciting book about a white boy named Maniac.Maniac loses his parents in a train crash and runs away to a town named Two Mills.Here he tries to improve relationships with black and white people.This book is very well written and keeps you thinking about what will happen next. I'd recomend this book to anyone who wants to read a great book.

Rating:
Summary: This is a good book
Review: My mom bought me this book and I started to read it and I couldn't but it down . This is about how legends are made , have you ever weaved down a football field running the ball between high schoolers making a touch down turning around and punting the ball 30 yards with only one hand and not past sixth grade !!!!! If you want to read a good book read Maniac Magee.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible.
Review: I had to read ths book for a school reading assignment and I really didn't like it. It told about Maniac Magee and how he got the blacks and the whites together. It was hard to understand and very boring.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to Believe
Review: This book is so artificial, it's even harder to believe than any whacko fantasy or science fiction books out there. Young readers may find his shoes and childish acts funny, but the maturity of this child Maniac shows that he really was a maniac...

Rating:
Summary: Terrific Book for Elementary School Kids
Review: I read this book years ago, and now am recommending it to my younger sister. Its a terrific story for any age, but is written easy enough for 3rd or 4th graders. Get it an read it.

Rating:
Summary: I liked the book Maniac Magee.
Review: Jeffry was a young boy who used to have parents but they died. He went to live with his aunt and uncle but he ran away to the East End and lived with a girl named Amanda Beal. But he finaly ran away to the zoo. This book was great and I enjoyed this book.