Blog 4

Keith Bradford

SLIS 5420

Blog 4

Maniac Magee

by

Jerry Spinelli



Plot Summary: After the death of his parents Jeffery "Maniac" Magee goes to live with his Aunt and Uncle. Unfortunatly, Jerry's Aunt and Uncle hate one another. One night, as a member of the chorus, during a performance of Dr. Dolittle Maniac takes off. Over a year later Jerry winds up in Two Mills PA. While running through Two Mills Maniac meets Amanda Beale who carries all of her books in a suitcase. After some coercing Amanda loans Jerry a book, which he proceeds to care with him everywhere he goes. Jerry's next encounter is intercepting a pass in a highschool football practice and hitting a homerun off of John McNab at a little league baseball game. Jerry then saves a kid from the feared Finsterwald's backyard, an incident that earns Jerry his nickname "Maniac." Maniac is cornered in a confusing confrontation with Mars Bar, who takes Maniac's borrowed Beale book rips out a page and crumples it up. Amanda Beale rescues Maniac from Mars Bar and invites Maniac to live with her and her family. Maniac helps out during his stay with the Beales. Others in the Beale's neighborhood are not happy with Maniac living with the Beales and make their feelings known by writing racist graffitti. Maniac runs to the zoo where he meets Grayson an ex-minor league baseball player who cannot read, who asks Maniac to stay with him. During his stay Maniac teaches Grayson to read. Grayson dies in his sleep and Maniac is off again. This time Maniac, on the verge of death from starvation, meets Piper and Russell who are running away and turn out to be Jack McNab's siblings. Maniac tries to make it work at the McNabs who are preparing a bunker in their basement for a suspected uprising of East Enders. However, Maniac eventually gives up working with Piper and Russell and moves again. Maniac runs into Mars Bar again and they have a race, which Maniac wins by running backwards. After moving back to the zoo, Maniac runs several miles before the people of Two Mills wake up. Mars Bar eventually joins Maniac on these runs, but the two never speak a word. On one of their runs the two come across Piper McNab who takes them to Russell who is stuck on the same trolley where Maniac's parent's were killed. Unable to help Maniac walks off, leaving Mars Bar to save Russell. Maniac goes back to the zoo where Mars Bar convinces Amanda to talk Maniac into living with her again.



My Impression: I was surprised that I enjoyed this book. This book could have easily become a bad episode of "Saved by the Bell," but Spinelli's book deals with racism and homelessness effectively without being heavy handed. Part of the success of the book, in my opinion, can be attributed to the pacing of the novel. The short chapters give the story a momentum that makes the reader feel like they are running alongside Maniac. The pace also helps build upon the idea that Maniac Magee is an urban legend.

The ancillary charcters are archetypes presented in swift strokes providing the bear bones of what the reader needs to get to know them. What I liked most about Maniac Magee was how little explanation there was for the events. I love it when characters accept what is going on without investigating the situation or asking for an explanation.


Review: You can find it in most libraries because it received the Newbery Medal but you'll want at least one copy of your own.
For those of you who haven't already had the pleasure, let us introduce you to this wonderful book. It's about prejudice and love and home and baseball and fear and understanding. It's about Jeffrey Lionel Magee, sometimes known as Maniac Magee, and about the people of the town of Two Mills.
Jeffrey's parents were killed in a trolley accident when he was three and he spent the next eight years in the bizarre household of his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan, who hated each other but refused to divorce and so lived in the same house without speaking to each other, using Jeffrey as their go-between. In a scene that will remind some of you of John Irving's adult novel, Prayer for Owen Meany, Jeffrey screams at them from the middle of a school concert, "Talk to each other!" and then runs away.
That's the beginning of his running and his search for a real home. He ends up in the town of Two Mills, two hundred miles away from his aunt and uncle. Two Mills is a town divided by race into East and West End. There Jeffrey becomes "Maniac Magee", the subject of legends that have lasted ever since. In his search for a place to belong, he eventually succeeds to some degree in uniting the town by forcing at least some of the Blacks and Whites to know each other.
There's enough to work with in this novel to take up a whole school year, but first of all, the novel is fun. There is much to laugh out loud about before you cry and then you think about what Spinelli is telling us in this book which is understandable, at least on one level, by children as young as third graders.
You won't need most of these suggestions for things to talk about. The book is so rich and so well written that you need to talk about it when you've finished reading it and so will the kids.



Hurst, C. [Review of "Maniac Magee"] Retrieved from http://www.carolhurst.com/titles/maniacmagee.html



His story starts 'Maniac Magee was not born in a dump.' In fact, he was Jeffrey Lionel Magee until he was orphaned at the age of three and shipped off to Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan, who didn't talk to each other and lived in a house of two toasters. At the age of eleven, Jeffrey couldn't abide it any longer. He started to run, stopped in Two Mills and the rest is history. As the author says 'the history of a kid is one part fact, two parts legend, and three parts snowball' and so it is with Maniac.This is a good kid who happens to live on the streets and avoid school, though he actively seeks an education and books. He is color blind yet sees clearly. 'He kept looking and looking, and the colors he found were gingersnap and light fudge and dark fudge and acorn and butter rum and cinnamon and burnt orange.' His tale in Two Mills begins (and ends) with a meeting with Amanda Beale, who carries her library around in a suitcase to protect it from sibling crayons and a dog that chews. Maniac borrows a book.Maniac's fame spreads through the kid community as this phantom Samaritan in flap-soled sneakers performs athletic feats, rescues a child from bullies, faces off gang leaders on both sides of the tracks and untangles Cobble's Knot. He moves in with the Beales and is happy until he encounters racism in this black East End community. When it results in the destruction of one of Amanda's beloved books, Maniac moves to the buffalo pen at the Zoo.There he meets an old man, ex- baseball player Grayson, who works for the park and shares stories of the Minor League. In return, Maniac teaches him to read. Grayson discovers that consonants are fun, but doesn't get along with vowels - 'you could go through twenty words without bumping into some of the shyer consonants, but it seemed as if you couldn't tiptoe past a syllable without waking up a vowel.' The old man and the boy are happy together while it lasts.Later, Maniac meets two runaways, Russell and Piper. He convinces them to return to their West End cockroach and gang-ridden fortress home and makes deals to keep the boys at school. Still unhappy when people don't talk to each other, Maniac invites the East End gang leader Mars Bar, 'blackest of the black', to the boys' birthday party. Though it turns out badly they become friends in an ending like Kipling's ballad 'East is East, and West is West and never the twain shall meet'. And Maniac is finally called home.I could not put this book down once started. Jeffrey Lionel Maniac Magee is the perfect kid hero, with all the right stuff. He follows his own drummer, helps the weak and can teach adults a thing or two. In describing the legend, Spinelli shows how clearly he remembers the rumors and exaggerations of childhood and adolescence. I was not at all surprised to see that this book was the Newbery Medal winner in 1991.



Williamson, H. (2000). [Review of "Maniac Magee"] retrieved from http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.ASP?bookid=2154



Suggestions for Library Use: Maniac Magee would be a good book to suggest to a user who is dealing with bullies. A librarian could read it out loud, but the librarian would have to do so installments due to the length.



Dear Mr. Henshaw
by
Beverly Cleary



Plot Summary: Leigh Botts is in the second grade when the reader encounters his first letter to author of Ways to Amuse Dogs Boyd Henshaw. Over the course of the first ten pages Leigh goes from 2nd grade to sixth grade. The reader only gets to read Leigh's letters not Mr. Henshaw's responses. In the beginning Leigh's letters to Mr. Henshaw are part of a school assignment, but evolve into a regular correspondence. Over the course of the letters the reader is treated to information about Leigh. Leigh's parents are divorced, Leigh's father is a truck driver, Leigh has had to move a great deal, Leigh does not have many friends and is quite lonely. Eventually Mr. Henshaw recommends that Leigh write in a diary. In the beginning the diary are pretend letters to Mr. Henshaw, but over time become Leigh's diary. Leigh begins to express his feelings about how his father's absense effects him. A reoccuring problem for Leigh is the lunch box thief; almost everyday someone takes part of Leighs lunch. Leigh develops a plan to deal with theif by creating an alarm. During the process of creating the alarm, Leigh makes his first friend, Barry. As Leigh writes in his diary, he get's better at writing and capturing the conversations he has with people and understanding the strained relationship between his father and mother. Through the diary Leigh is able to put his life in perspective.



My Impressions: This is a very well crafted book. Epistolary novels can be pretenious, because the author of the documents tends to be uncommonly wiser than their years would lead you to believe. What makes "Dear Mr. Henshaw" a great book is that just as much characterization about Leigh is revealed in the quality of writing as in the writing itself. As the letters go on the reader sees Leighs maturity develop. Leigh is dealing with same problems at the beginning of the novel that he is at the end, he just learns how to deal with it by expressing himself. Having the story start off with Leigh at such a young age underplays the personal losses, father and dog, that Leigh wrestles with through out the novel. Cleary respects her audience enough to know that not all problems are solved with hugs and smiles, which is why the end of the book feels honest. "I feel sad and a whole lot better at the same time," is the perfect way to end the novel. The audience doesn't know what happens to Leigh, but they know he will be okay. IThis is a great book and I plan on read the sequel, "Strider."



Review:
Review: Dear Mr. Henshaw
Beverly Cleary was definitely my favorite author growing up. I read all the Ramona Quimby books multiple times, but I think the prize for the most rereads of one books is this one...Dear Mr. Henshaw.This was the first time I had reread it as an adult. What a difference of perspective! Leigh Botts' favorite author is Boyd Henshaw. He writes to him for the first time in 2nd grade, and a couple years later sends him a list of questions to answer as part of a school report. Mr. Henshaw answers his questions and sends a list back for Leigh to answer. So begins a mentorship and friendship in writing. Along the way, Leigh deals with feelings surrounding his parents' divorce and being the new kid at school, all while developing the skills he needs to become an author someday.I was struck by the talent it takes for an adult to write authentically from a kid's perspective. We see the world through Leigh's eyes - even how he interprets Mr. Henshaw's advice. And, we see Leigh develop over the years he writes to Mr. Henshaw. His thinking becomes less concrete, and he is able to view a situation from multiple perspectives. He also develops self-awareness. I think it takes a skilled author to convey so many things in language plain enough that it can be understood by young readers.When I opened the book last night, I could have told you that the book was in letter format between a kid and an author. I had forgotten almost all of the details, but as soon as I read them again they came back. I could hear some of them being read by my second grade teacher, while others were familiar because I'd read them so many times before. It was a fun trip down memory lane.

Hermie, M. [Review of "Dear Mr. Henshaw"] Retrieved from http://cozyandcontent.blogspot.com/2009/05/review-dear-mr-henshaw.html


Dear Mr. Henshaw Review

Veronica Hosking

When I was eight years old, I read Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary. It was the first chapter book I read by myself that I remember devouring. I finished the book in three days. After reading it, I too, wanted to become an author like Leigh Botts and his penpal, Mr. Henshaw. I followed the advice in the book and began writing in a journal.Fast forward twenty years - my writing took a back seat. I was married, had two little girls and was a stay at home mom. My oldest began pre-k and I felt something was missing in my life. I started journaling again and began a blog, http://hosking.mindsay.com. While online one day, I saw submission guidelines for the anthology, Forget Me Knots... from the Front Porch. The previous year I sent my first submission off to Strange New Worlds, a star trek anthology publishing trek fiction by new writers. My story was not published but I met some wonderful, encouraging writers. I decided it wasn't too nervewracking to let a stranger read my writing.I sent my creative nonfiction story, "Carousel", to the editor of Forget Me Knots... and she liked what she read. In early 2003 I saw my first print byline. I thought of Dear Mr. Henshaw because the advice Mr. Henshaw gave to Leigh was to write what you know. "Carousel" was a true story about how my oldest daughter sat in trees in our park one day, pretending they were horses on a carousel.Fast forward another five years my youngest is now eight years old and comes home from school excited one afternoon; "Mom, my teacher is reading a book about a boy writing to an author.""Dear Mr. Henshaw!" Mom blurts out. My Little One looks at me, "How did you know?""It was my favorite book when I was your age. It was the first chapter book I read by myself."Of course my Little One talked me into buying a copy for our home. She began reading it ouloud to me yesterday afternoon, and I continued reading some more to her at bedtime. We are already half way through the book. Almost thirty years later, Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary is still a great read. It's even better to be able to share it.

Hosking, V. (2009). [Review of "Dear Mr. Henshaw"] Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1743750/dear_mr_henshaw_review.html

Suggestions for Library Use: I would use this book to suggest writing in journals or writing to Authors to a group of children. Maybe reading the first part of the book on one day, having the children go home and start their own journals or write a letter to an author and bring it back the next week.