Maniac Magee (Newbery Medal Winner)

by Jerry Spinelli

Book Overview

A Newbery Medal winning modern classic about a racially divided small town and a boy who runs. Jeffrey Lionel Maniac Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316809063
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.6" x 0.9" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

Great book, bad sale.

Was so excited to find and buy this childhood favorite of mine to add to my collection. Extremely disappointed that is did not arrive with the sleeve. This may seem silly to some. But I specifically ordered from this seller because it had the cover that I had on my childhood book. Had the seller noted in the description that the sleeve was missing, I would not have purchased. But I looked again after receiving the book, and it is not noted at all.

great book, perfect condition

Great book about cultural differences and how one boy doesn't seem to let it bother him.

the kid who loves to run

LOOK OUT! Here comes the boy who loves to run: Maniac Magee his parents died in a car crash and now he lives with his aunt and uncle! One day when he went to his holiday concert with his aunt and uncle then they started making fun of him so he ran right out of that school and ran right down the street and kept running overnight until he reached a whole new town in the morning. When he walked around the next morning he came upon a girl he asked her name, it was Amanda Beale he started talking to her and asked her what was in her briefcase Amanda said it was full of books for school and he asked to see one do she gave him one and he asked to borrow it she said yes because she was late for school and Amanda Beale is never late for school. He stays at many more houses with some weird people to find out about those people read Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. In this book maniac comes across a lot of challenges he comes to beat. I would give this book (.....)I loved this book and I guarantee you will to! If you want to check out this book go to your local library and check this book out!

Maniac Magee Review

Maniac Magee was an outstanding book. It was one of the best books i have ever read. Maniac Magee's real name is Jeffery Lionel Magee. He is an 11 year old whose parents died on a trestle. So he had to go live with his aunt and uncle. He ran away from his aunt and uncles house because they were not getting along. On his journey running he ran to a place called The Two Mills and he met a couple of kids. The first kid was Amanda. Maniac told Amanda about his parents and Amanda Beale invited Maniac to live with them. Maniac was so happy that he had an address now. You are probably wondering where he was sleeping before the Beale's let him live with them. Well i am not going to tell you, you are going to have to see for yourself. The author that wrote this book is trying to teach us a lesson, to be friends with everyone no matter what color you are. This author is an amazing writer, in his books there is a lot of humor, and at the same time there is a lot of sadness. I would recommend this book to 10 year olds to 13 year olds because i am 11 and it really kept my attention. My opinion of this book is that it was a marvelous book. One of my favorite parts was when he tired to get that enormous knot out of the rope.

What a great book!

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. F