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Summary: Maniac Magee
Review: This is a fictional tale of Jeffrey Lionel Magee,who has a troubled beginning and is orphaned at the age of three. He later recieves the nickname of "Maniac", by his peers and his actions. His journey is one that leads him from family to family searching for a home with a numerical address. After all, doesn't everyone have an address? His journey is not only one that confronts homelessness, but prejudice and stereotypes. Enjoy this as you follow Maniac through his adventures and stories of physical and personal conquests.
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Summary: Maniac Magee
Review: Jeffrey Lionel Magee had a troubled beginning and was orphaned at the age of three. He later receives the nickname of Maniac by his peers and his actions. His journey is one that leads him from family to family searching for a home and a numerical address. After all, doesn't everyone have an address? His journey is not only one that confronts homelessness, but prejudice and stereotypes. Enjoy this as you follow Maniac through his adventures and stories of physical and personal conquest.
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Summary: he's so cool
Review: Maniac Magee is a masterful book. It writes of a boy named Jeffrey (Maniac) Lionel Magee. This book is a powerful tale of a boy displaced, who runs till he reaches a town that speaks home from every brick. knowing nothing of racism or hatred, he is confused by some of the things he finds in his new home. But his innocence and athletic prowess win him friends on both sides of the track.
Maniac Magee has a powerful message to tell to any who will listen. And children find it an adventurous if somewhat deep story.
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Summary: Modern Day American Folktale
Review: Maniac Magee ia a great modern day American Folktale. The main character, Jeffrey, exhibits traits of a folk hero. As an eight year old, he can do tasks better than most adults. He is a pure soul who encounters racism and predijuce from a variety of different groups. He also experiences life and death first hand. It is a great story that leaves you wanting more.
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Summary: A magical book.....
Review: This book is written by my favorite author - Jerry Spinelli. This book is so good that each time I read it, it gets more suspensful, fun, and there is more adventure each time. I would recommend this book to people who like suspense and action. If you like Harry Potter, you will love Maniac Magee. He's like Harry Potter, except he does it without magic.
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Summary: What a great book!
Review: In "Before the Story", an introduction to the novel, Jerry Spinelli writes, "What's true, what's myth? It's hard to know." Was Maniac Magee really a superhero in an urban legend of childhood--or was he just an extraordinary, though very human, young boy? Again, even to those who have read the story several times, it's hard to know. I doubt if Spinelli himelf knows the answer. During Part I, for example, Jeffrey/Maniac is a boy in Chapter I, a legend in Chapter II, a boy in Chapter III, a legend in Chapter IV . . . you get the idea.Even the rest of the characters have that half-unbelievable, half-real quality about them, though not as powerfully. For instance, few people have ever known an Amanda Beale who carries her entire library to school everyday; but it is easy to believe that _someone_ like Amanda does exist . . . somewhere out there. And most kids could interview all the old parkhands in their states and probably not find one who has struck out Willie Mays, or any other major league baseball player, for that matter. Yet it is still easy to believe that the novel's Grayson has a real-life counterpart. Beginning with Chapter One, when the first strange characters, Uncle Dan and Aunt Dot, are introduced, readers may suspend their disbelief and experience one of the most wonderful adventures in modern children's literature. I call it an adventure because, whether he or the readers know it or not, Jeffrey/Maniac is on a quest. He is looking for a place to call home, a place where he can be accepted and happy. Readers follow him from his first home in Bridgeport to his final home in a place-you-will-have-to-read-the-novel-to-know-about. This quest is not the only mythical element in this great novel: the hero also has several tasks to perform and dangers to brave before he achieves his dream. Along with all his "superpowers," he even has a "fatal flaw" to overcome: his naive nearsightedness when it comes to others. Some of the tasks are as simple as undoing an impossible knot. Others are as "dangerous" as trying to make peace between blacks and whites in a neighborhood. Something else mythical is Maniac's experience in the West End, which can be called a "Descent into the Underworld". Like a modern Odysseus, he makes many educational stops on the way to his own special Ithaca. (The three parts of the book mark these stops.) All of this is told in Jerry Spinelli's beautiful prose, which sometimes nearly becomes poetry. For example: "For most of November, winter toyed with Two Mills, whispered in its ear, tickled it under the chin. On Thanksgiving Thursday, winter kicked it in the stomach." At other times, the narrative seems to come straight out of a character's mind, with Spinelli taking on the voice of that character. To top it all off, "Maniac Magee" has an excellent moral. (There are many little lessons scattered throughout the plot, but I will focus on the main one.) Interestingly, the novel does not make any fixed judgements on running away. First it seems to say that running away is not the answer and that homes must be worked on, as much as found. Then it reminds us that Jeffrey/Maniac would not have found his home had he not run away to look for it in the first place. This story tugs at the heart and enriches the soul, but it also opens the mind.
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Summary: Maniac Magee
Review: I think that this is a very good book for kids at the age of 11-12. The book contains humor and good life learned lessons. I read this book during school and told my teacher I was really glad I choose this book.
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Summary: Teachers, read this book
Review: ... When I first read this book in grade school, I liked it but didn't understand the racism theme. When I re-read it in middle school, I got much more out of it.
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Summary: Maniac!!!!
Review: If you like a book with excitement throughout the whole book then this is a book you would like. Its about a boy that loves to run. He runs awy from home and finds this girl walking to school one morning. He stays at her house for a while but decides to run away. Then he goes around setting sports records and starts doing unbelieveable things such as, catching a football like hands down, untieing a knot that nobody has ever untied and hitting the very first inside the park frogball homer. Then he lives in the locker room of the legion field baseball park and becomes very good friends witha man that work there. If you want to find out the rest you should get this book. Its full of action and suspense.
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Summary: Spinelli's best book yet
Review: When Jeffery Lionel Magee is left an orphan, he is sent to live with his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan, who hate eachother but cannot get divorced because of their religion. Jeffery (later known as Maniac), gets tired of 2 of everything, so he sets off into the world without knowing about racism. So he lives with the Beales,a black family, and, as a white kid in a black family, that's where his adventures begin.
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