Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Maniac Magee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Myth, Reality, and Heroism
Racism
Love, Loss, and Home
Human Dignity, Connection, and Community
Summary
Analysis
Maniac fits into the Beales’ home right away. He plays with Hester and Lester and reads to them. He walks Bow Wow and even helps with the dishes and other chores without being asked. Mrs. Beale is astonished by the neatness of Maniac’s bedroom. In fact, it looks like he doesn’t sleep in the bed. One night, she discovers that he sleeps on the floor. He can’t stand feeling too comfortable.
Maniac doesn’t have a typical kid’s aversion to chores or tendency to make messes. It’s as if he doesn’t want to take his new home for granted. He’s also spent so much time homeless that some of the comforts of home feel alien to him.
Themes
With Maniac there, other interesting things begin to occur around the Beale house. For example, Hester and Lester stop coloring on everything—they have Maniac to distract them. Amanda no longer feels the need to lug her books around in a suitcase. Everyone’s fingertips heal, because Maniac takes over the job of untying the little ones’ shoelace knots.
Maniac’s presence—just his participation in the normal rhythms of family life, nothing spectacular or heroic—has a positive impact on those around him. He also shows a liking for tackling thorny problems, which will be significant later.
Themes
One day, Mrs. Beale finds Maniac covered with raised red blotches. She takes him to the doctor, and he’s diagnosed with a pizza allergy. At first, they think that’s impossible, since such a thing would have been discovered before now. But when the doctor asks Maniac, “You have eaten pizza before, haven’t you?” Maniac’s expression tells them the truth.
The “pizza allergy”—which of course doesn’t really exist—adds to the legend surrounding Manic and, more to the point, it shows that he’s been deprived of many of those things that are considered normal in kids’ lives.
Themes
