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Maniac Magee is a novel written by popular young adult author Jerry Spinelli. It was published in 1990, and won the Newbery Medal in 1991.
Like many of Spinelli's other books, Maniac Magee is a book, written for young adults, about profound themes. Maniac Magee deals primarily with the themes of racism and family. Spinelli begins his story in the fashion of a playground gossip, positing that the reader has heard of the famous Maniac Magee and the author is merely setting out to tell the true story of the boy legend. Over the course of the novel, this frame slips into an omniscient narrative, which is more suited to the serious events of the novel.
Plot summary
Jeffrey Lionel Magee is orphaned at age three when his parents are killed in the famous P&W trolley accident. He spends the next eight years in the bizarre household of his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan. Jeffrey's aunt and uncle live in the same house without speaking to one another; they use Jeffrey as their go-between. They hate each other, but being strict Catholics, they do not get divorced. At a choir concert taking place during Jefferey's twelfth year, Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan sit in attendance on opposite ends of a row of seats. The performance is suddenly interrupted by Jeffrey, who screams at the top of his lungs, "Talk! Talk, will ya! Talk! Talk! Talk!" Soon afterward, Jeffrey runs away from his strange relatives and enters the annals of legend.
After one year of running, Jeffrey arrives in Two Mills, a town racially segregated by Hector Street, which runs through the middle of town. Here he befriends people on both sides of the unofficial divide. Among them is the African-American family of Amanda Beale, which adopts Jeffrey for a time. Jeffrey "Maniac" Magee proceeds to become a neighborhood legend by, among other things, outdoing a gang of bullies led by John McNab; sitting on the doorstep of a reclusive, notoriously ill-tempered neighbor called Finsterwald; untying Cobbles' Knot (a reference to Alexander and the Gordian Knot), and standing up to a bully nick-named Mars Bar, who disguises his own fears by frightening all other children in Two Mills.
Later, Jeffrey meets McNab's little brothers Piper and Russell as they run away from home. In return for convincing his brothers to return home, John forgives Jeffrey and brings him home. In the McNab house, Jeffrey sees gluttony, squalor, racial prejudice, sloth, and malaise. He attempts to correct this by bribing his adopted younger brothers Piper and Russell into good behavior and by bringing "Mars Bar" Thompson (the East End's "harshest African-American child") to a family birthday party. The introduction of Mars Bar to the McNabs is a disaster, but ultimately teaches Jefferey a valuable lesson about his friend's character.
Due to struggles that result from his unique social position - that of a homeless integrator - Jeffrey leaves the McNabs and roams all over the town, sleeping where he might and running at his own great pace through the streets in the early morning. Mars Bar also goes running; when he meets Jeffrey, they run parallel, acknowledging one another in looks but not words.
During the course of their running, they come upon Piper and Russell. Russell is in danger of being hit by a trolley on the very same line which Jefferey's parents died. Jeffery helps them .him, Mars Bar takes both children to his own house, where his mother cares for them.
Homeless again, Jeffrey takes refuge in the buffalo enclosure of the New York zoo and meets Grayson, a former minor league pitcher. Mars Bar finds Maniac there and tells him what has happened. He also asks why Jeffrey did not attempt to rescue Russell. He then invites Jeffrey to visit his family, but Jeffrey declines.
On hearing of this refusal, Amanda Beale (who sees Jeffrey's welfare as her own responsibility) storms into the zoo and retrieves her friend. She insists that Jeffrey become a permanent resident in her house, and Jeffrey accepts.
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