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Maniac isn't an activist or a crusader. He's just a kind, honorable kid who wants to feel a sense of belonging and thinks people should get along. The wonderful Beales show him that family has no color, and Grayson shows him that you don't need a lot to feel the warmth of home. Almost unintentionally, Maniac helps some of the White West Enders and Black East Enders open their hearts to each other.
A mom slaps Maniac when he trash-talks, but then both of them are sorry for the incident and he hugs her. References to Maniac's parents dying in an accident when he was three. Mr. McNab irrationally prepares to defend his home from Black people, and the McNab children pretend-play that Black and White people are at war.
Parents need to know that Jerry Spinelli's Newbery Medal-winning novel Maniac Magee tells the story of an orphaned White boy who becomes a local legend in a racially divided town. The book is by turns exciting, heartwarming, and funny, with some tall tales added, enhancing the boy's reputation: Eight-year-old Jeffrey "Maniac" Magee can run and swing a baseball bat faster than kids twice his age. The story is also at least as relevant as it was when the book was published, in 1991. Black and White families are segregated in the story, and there's a lot of fear and resentment between them. One family is gearing up for an imagined race war, and the children pretend they are fighting off Black "invaders." Those kids also smoke and drink, and the novel generally explores the right (and wrong) ways to make children feel secure and happy at home.
The book title MANIAC MAGEE refers to a boy (really named Jeffrey), who is such a fast and impressive athlete that people start referring to him as a "maniac." When the story begins, Jeffrey, who's White, is living with his aunt and uncle because his parents died in an accident when the boy was only 3. Jeffrey's guardians don't get along with each other, though. In fact, they don't even speak to each other. One day, Jeffrey runs out of patience with them and literally takes off running. He winds up in Two Mills, a town that is divided between East Enders (Black residents) and West Enders (White ones). Both Black and White kids soon learn that Maniac can run and swing a bat faster than anyone. He makes friends on both sides of town, and is taken in by the Beale family, who are Black, where the household includes two loving parents, a girl named Amanda, who's Maniac's age, and her little brother and sister, Hester and Lester. Not all of the East Enders approve of Maniac living with the Beales, however, and Maniac feels terrible about bringing trouble to their door, so he runs away again, this time finding a home with an older man who warms to Maniac. Eventually, Maniac is on his own again, but a couple of needy children lead him back to Two Mills, and he tries to make sense, and peace, of the racial divide.
Jerry Spinelli's wonderful novel addresses essential issues of race and child raising, but it's never preachy. Instead, the author tells an engrossing and amusing story that makes kids think about their world, and it serves as a great discussion starter. Likewise, Spinelli offers hope that individual hearts and minds can change, but he doesn't guarantee universal peace and harmony. The author's approach is engaging, not only because he doesn't make any unrealistic promises, but also because he creates such winning and rich characters, with relatable quirks and problems. Maniac Magee is a legend to kids in Two Mills because he seems first and foremost like a real kid with an extraordinary story.
Author Jerry Spinelli uses exaggeration and tall tales to embellish the legend of Maniac Magee, but other parts of the book are very realistic. Have you read any other books that have that kind of mix? How does it affect the way you feel about the story?
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Maniac had dinner with the Pickwell family for the second time. He sat atthe old ping pong table with Mr. and Mrs. Pickwell, their many children, theirextended family, and a shoe salesman who was a guest. While there, Maniac "ateand talked and laughed his way through dinner." This happy time of togethernessmade him remember the Beale family. It had been almost a year since he livedwith the family, but his memories of them were still fond. Maniac thought about"how alike the two families were: friendly, giving, accepting."
The Beale and Pickwell families had many differences, and yet they had muchin common. The Pickwell family was very large. They were white and lived on theWest End of town. The Beale family was smaller. They were black and lived onthe East End of town. Despite these differences, both families welcomed ManiacMagee. They fed him and showed him that they cared. They accepted him withoutquestion. They made him feel loved. As Maniac sat eating at the large ping pongtable, "he could picture the Beales' brown faces around this dinner table, andthe little Pickwell kids' white bodies in the bathtub."
Tolbert, Dorothea. "In "Maniac Magee", how do the Pickwell and Beale families compare?" edited by eNotes Editorial, 26 Apr. 2016, -magee/questions/book-maniac-magee-how-pickwell-family-like-beale-524002.
Both the Pickwells and the Beales are large, intact family units. ThePickwells include the parents, ten children, a baby, paternal grandparents andone great-grandparent, while the Beale household is made up of the parents andthree children. In both families, the mothers are very involved withhomemaking duties; when Maniac meets Mrs. Pickwell, she has just prepared ameal for her "small nation", and when he meets Mrs. Beale, she is "busywith her usual tools...a yellow plastic bucket and a sponge", and thefathers of both families are strong presences as well.
Because of their large sizes, both families exist in a sort of organized,loving chaos. Mrs. Pickwell stands outside and blows a whistle atsuppertime, at which the Pickwell children come scurrying in from all cornersof the neighborhood. Mrs. Beale, who has two preschoolers, is busy"scrubbing purple crayon off the TV screen" when Maniac first enters thehouse.
Both the Pickwells and the Beales are spontaneous and generous in openingtheir homes to those in need. The Pickwells, who are "always helping outsomebody", have "a down-and-out taxi driver whom Mr. Pickwell is helping"staying with them, and they barely notice when Maniac appears at the dinnertable with them, indicating that the presence of extra mouths to feed is notunusual. When Mr. and Mrs. Beale discover that Maniac has no home,they immediately say, "you're staying here" (Chapters 6 and 12).
Matsuoka, Donna. "In "Maniac Magee", how do the Pickwell and Beale families compare?" edited by eNotes Editorial, 18 Dec. 2008, -magee/questions/book-maniac-magee-how-pickwell-family-like-beale-524002.
Two decades earlier, the parents of twelve-year-old Jeffrey Lionel Magee (Michael Angarano) are killed by a drunk driver just after his father told him that he would show him his infamous "stopball." After his parents' funeral, a police officer and a woman named Dottie Freeze (Melissa Bickerton) who runs an orphanage approaches Jeffrey and tells him to "come with them." They both appear to be lunatics, scaring Jeffrey who decides to run out of town and across the country. All of the running seems to develop into supernatural-like qualities allowing him to run at a very fast speed. After nearly a year of running, he arrives in the town of Two Mills, where racial tensions are extremely strong. Hector Street, the main street located in the middle of the town, divides Two Mills by race: blacks on East End, whites on West End. Jeffrey is confused by racial biases; to him, the people are simply people - heterogeneous, but with much in common, such as both kindness and cruelty.
Jeffrey first crosses over on the East End where the black people there stare at him. He is amazed by a giant ball of twine located outside of a pizza place called "Cobble's Corner" owned by an elderly black man, Mr. Cobble (Garrett Morris). Anyone who can untie it wins a year supply of free pizza from his place. Mr. Cobble comes out and tells Jeffrey to go back to his own side. Jeffrey does so and comes across a kid's baseball game where he comes across a white teenager, Big John McNab (Adam Hendershott), who is a pitcher known for striking out many kids with his fast throw. His younger brothers, Russell and Piper (Brandon de Paul and Isaiah Griffin), cheer him on from behind the gate. His pitching still isn't enough to please his father, George (Rip Torn), who urges him to do better. Jeffrey skips a line of kids waiting to bat to take on Big John. He manages to strike the ball so fast it disintegrates in the air. Big John takes Piper's pet frog to use as a ball to throw at Jeffrey next, who hits it lightly. Big John has a hard time catching it as it's hopping around, allowing Jeffery to score an in-park home run. He tells his friends to go after Jeffrey proclaiming him as a "maniac". Jeffrey makes a run for it back across the East End. The white boys are trapped on their end, but urge Jeffrey not to come back over.
On the East End, Jeffrey runs by a school and meets with a black girl his age named Amanda Beale (Kyla Pratt). Jeffrey first assumes she's running away since she's carrying a large suitcase, but Amanda tells him that it's full of books. Amanda asks Jeffrey if he knows where he is given his skin color and Jeffrey tells her no. Afterwards, he urges her to let him borrow a book to read and promises to bring it back to her. Jeffrey goes to read the book under a tree and catches the eye of Mars Bar Thompson (Orlando Brown) and his friend Bump Gilliam (Shan Elliot). Mars goes to pick a fight with Jeffrey, ripping the page out of Amanda's book in the process. Amanda comes over and scolds Mars for doing that and sends him away. Amanda takes Jeffrey over to her house so he can fix her book. Jeffrey meets Amanda's mother Martha (Rolonda Watts) who assumes he isn't from the area. When Amanda asks if he can stay for dinner, her mother refuses until her younger children, twins Hester and Lester, want him to. After dinner, Mr. Beale (Richard Lawson) goes to drive Jeffrey home only to discover along the way he doesn't have one. He takes Jeffrey back and talks to Martha, who persuades him to let Jeffrey stay for a while.
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