Skip to main content

What is one word that describes Maniac Magee that begins with the letter "A"?

I can think of quite a few "A" words that would describe Maniac Magee.  Awesome, athletic, able, alienated, and altruistic.  


Maniac is definitely an able bodied athlete.  Early in the story he catches a football one handed then punts it directly back into the hands of the quarterback.  



When the kid got down to the soccer field, he turned and punted the ball. It sailed back over the up-looking gym classers, spiraling more perfectly than anything Brian Denehy had ever thrown, and landed in the outstretched hands of still stunned Hands Down. Then the kid ran off. There was one other thing, something that all of them saw but no one believed until they compared notes after school that day: up until the punt, the kid had done everything with one hand. He had to, because in his other hand was a book.



Maniac continues his athletic prowess by hitting every single pitch that John McNab can throw.  He even successfully bunted the frog ball that McNab threw.  Maniac then managed to make his bunted frog into a home run hit.  



And that's how Jeffrey Magee knocked the world's first frog ball for a four-bagger.



I think Maniac is an altruistic character as well, because he is constantly giving up his time in a selfless manner for other people's benefit.  For example, Maniac takes time to teach Grayson how to read.  Another example of Maniac's altruistic spirit is his care for the McNab family. Maniac winds up being a guardian angel of sorts over Piper and Russel McNab.  


Lastly, Maniac is an alienated child.  For as "cool" and capable as he is, Maniac doesn't have a home.  He ran away from his Aunt and Uncle. Two Mills is a divided town by race, and Maniac can't quite seem to fit in with anybody.  He likes living with the Beale family, but he's an outsider, because he's white.  Maniac doesn't fit in with the other families either though, and consequently Maniac is frequently an outsider in the story.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more