MANIAC MAGEE
By Jerry Spinelli
Scholastic, 1990
Category: Middle-grade fiction
Awards: Newbery Medal
Ahh. Now I get it.
It took seventeen years, but I finally read MANIAC MAGEE. And I Loved it. (Capital L intentional.) The voice is unusual, and it was pitch-perfect throughout. It didn’t let up for a single sentence. Not one.
“They say Maniac Magee was born in a dump. They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart a sofa spring.
They say he kept an eight-inch cockroach on a leash and that rats stood guard over him while he slept.
They say if you knew he was coming and you sprinkled salt on the ground and he ran over it, within two or three blocks he would be as slow as everybody else.
They say.”
And so it goes, for the entire fantastically unbelievably true story of Maniac Magee. It is masterful. And a heck of a lot of fun to read.