Friendship
Freak the Mighty tells the unlikely story of the friendship that develops between Max, a frighteningly tall (and in his own opinion, unintelligent) eighth grader and his new neighbor, a boy named Kevin. Kevin—whom Max calls “Freak” for most of the novel—has Morquio syndrome, which means that he has dwarfism and he suffers from a number of related health issues. But Freak is also the smartest person Max has ever met. As…
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The Power of Storytelling
Freak the Mighty is largely a meditation on the purpose of storytelling and the power that stories can have in a person’s life. The book itself is framed as something that Max wrote himself as a healing exercise a year after Freak’s untimely but not unexpected death from complications connected to Morquio syndrome. In addition, over the course of Freak and Max’s yearlong friendship, Freak introduces Max to a number of stories about…
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Memory, Grief, and Trauma
Much of eighth grader Max’s story has to do with what happens in his present over the course of his yearlong friendship with Freak, a boy who’s suffering from a rare illness called Morquio syndrome. But underlying Max’s story is the idea that memory—and specifically, traumatic memories—dictate the course of Max’s life prior to Freak’s death. Max retrospectively narrates the novel a year after Freak death, telling his story as he comes…
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Family Legacy vs. Individuality
When the reader first meets Max, a lonely eighth-grade boy, it’s clear that he doesn’t fit in with his family. Max lives with his grandparents, whom he calls Grim and Gram, and his relationship with them is rocky: Grim, in particular, fears that Max is going to take after his violent father, Kenny, and so both Grim and Gram treat Max with fear and suspicion. Max similarly fears that he’s going to…
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