Helpful Score: 3
I read this book in grade school and it was one of the books that made me start reading on my own and not just feel like I had to. I would recommend this to any younger child to get them to start to love reading as well as to teach them about a variety of different issues.
Helpful Score: 3
A very interesting book for adolescents about issues such as race, competetion, and having no where to go. Maniac Magee teaches a whole town a lesson about understanding and looking withIN rather than only at the outside of a person.
Helpful Score: 1
There are few writers of Spinelli's caliber for middle grades. He captures the essence of being a young boy struggling to be a young man. Every adolescent boy (and girls who want to better understand boys) should read this book.
Helpful Score: 1
This is a fine easy read for a tween-teen reader
Helpful Score: 1
bursts with creativity, enthusiasm and hope for the future,, a celebration of life
Helpful Score: 1
funny and a great read. love spinelli and it's the best book he wrote!
Awesome- A Newberry Book Medal Award
Great book for middle schoolers or pre-teens!
the kids say Maniac got his name cause he did absolutely incredible geats in sports-brave and crazy things!
A GREAT read for older elementary students...Fifth and sixth graders will identify and connect to Maniac, and will be impressed with his ability to survive on his own for much of the time. It is a great book to use as a springboard to discuss race relations or race divisions. Maniac serves as the unlikely vehicle for affecting a change of heart and attitude in a Philadelphia area neighborhood.
This book was wonderful. I just read it for the first time as an adult but I wish everyone could read it. Such a great reminder that we are not different from each other.
A classic Children's book loved by my 11-year old
Awarding book-- One boy unite two very different communities.
A young orphan decides to start running: And there's no one who can stop him!
Jerry Spinelli is a Newberry Award-Winning Author, and this is another of his books about fabulous teenagers!
My boys and I both enjoyed this book. Imaginative, funny, hard to put down.
MANIAC MAGEE is one of those unassuming, yet quietly powerful novels, despite its Newbery Award win and near canonization in modern children's literature. It's a seriously ageless novel, in that readers can always get something new out of it, no matter what age you are. When I read this book for the first time in elementary school, I enjoyed the realistic banter between the children, between the blacks and the whites. Now, as I reread it for my children's literature class, I am in awe of the way that Spinelli effortlessly weaves a moral tale into something entertaining and unique. His language is brilliance, stars and moon itself, and his characters are memorable and relatable. Even though I'm still not a fan of Maniac, with his improbable feats and passivity, this book is a must-read if you're looking for the best of the best in children's lit.
A boy gets caugtht between this terrible life of segregation and strives to tell people what life is really about.
My son enjoyed this book alot.
I enjoyed reading this book to 4th graders before I retired from teaching. I requested this book for my grandson who is now in 4th grade. He was excited to see that I had it when he came to visit for a weekend. He was reading it in his class at school. He was thrilled to have it here so he could read ahead of his class.... and stayed up late to read about 30 pages ahead! It is good stories like this.... that has encouraged him to keep reading!
I read this book many years ago because a man in town went to the school board and demanded that this book be removed from the middle school library. I thought the book was great and could not see why anyone would object to it. The school board heard a lot of comment from people in the town and the book stayed in the library.
Sonlight Level 100
Maniac Magee is a folk story about a boy, a very excitable boy. One that can outrun dogs, hit a home run off the best pitcher in the neighborhood, tie a knot no one can undo. "Kid's gotta be a maniac," is what the folks in Two Mills say. It's also the story of how this boy, Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee, confronts racism in a small town, tries to find a home where there is none and attempts to soothe tensions between rival factions on the tough side of town.
