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
Finsterwald’s is the first of many heroic feats Maniac performs. He races a freight train and wins; he walks barefoot through a rat-infested dump; he climbs into the buffalo pen at the zoo and kisses a baby buffalo (that one is his idea). He sees himself as paying Piper and Russell’s “tuition” to make sure they keep going to school. The boys, meanwhile, feel more and more important because of their association with Maniac. But one week, they give him “the most perilous challenge of all”—to enter the East End.
Maniac continues nurturing the McNab boys in his own untraditional way—keeping them in school (hence not running away, and away from their dad’s and brother’s influence) by doing things nobody else dares. To the boys, entering the East End is the scariest dare they can imagine.
Themes
