Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli: Book Review
How much can happen to a child in the space of a few years of his life? A lot, if you’re what legends are made of. The legend is Jeffrey Lionel Magee, also known as manic mageein the book of the same name, by Jerry Spinelli.
He was born in an ordinary house, of ordinary parents. But when a tram crashed into the river and killed them, Jeffrey’s life began to change. He was sent to live with his Uncle Dan and Aunt Dot, who lived together but shared nothing and never spoke.
After eight years of this, one day Jeffrey started screaming during a school play. He then he left the auditorium, running, and he never stopped.
Thus began his life as a homeless boy. He found himself in the black section of town, with a girl carrying his entire library in a suitcase, back and forth to school. After he begged her, Amanda finally lent him a book to read.
After that, the stories about him began. He was the only boy…never…ever!…who wasn’t afraid to walk into Finsterwald’s backyard. If you lost your baseball or your model airplane because he flew over the fence into his backyard, you didn’t dare go in there to get it back. No one would deliver papers there. No one would shovel that sidewalk, not even for a trillion dollars.
But Jeffrey Magee was not afraid. He rescued Arnold when some high school boys tried to throw him, screaming, over the fence into Finsterwald’s backyard. These things, in addition to his athletic exploits, were what caused people to call him “Maniac”, and the name stuck.
But he didn’t have a home. He jumped over the fence at night to sleep with buffalo at the zoo. He snuck into Mrs. Pickwell’s for dinner every now and then, and nobody thought anything was wrong, because they had so many kids to begin with, and usually a couple of friends too, who all thought he was just the friend of another person.
More than anything, though, this is a story of Maniac and the friends he makes, the fights he fights, and the challenges he faces. There’s so much going on with him, there’s more here than an encyclopedia.
The chapters are short, and the way the people and events in her life intertwine as the book progresses is interesting. Through it all, Maniac keeps running and running and running, looking for a place and people to come home to.
This has been a popular children’s book since it was published in 1990. Part of it is that there is so much going on, and part of it is that Maniac and the things he does are so unusual. Children can identify that he doesn’t feel like he belongs anywhere, but he keeps trying.
It is a difficult book to categorize. It’s not really about sports, although there is some baseball and racing. It touches on racism, but that’s not the biggest part of the story either. you will have to read manic mageeof Jerry Spinelli, yourself, to see what you think.