Maniac Magee is about Jeffrey Lionel Magee's search for "home" and the racial prejudice in the town of Two Mills. Spinelli has written the novel in third person ("He said," as opposed to "I said," which is called first person), using an objective viewpoint (in which the thoughts and feelings of the characters are not revealed).
Jeffrey lived in Bridgeport with his parents until he was three years old. During that year he became an orphan. His parents were killed in a trolley accident over the Schuylkill River. During the next eight years, Jeffrey lives with his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. The household is extremely dysfunctional because his aunt and uncle never speak to each other. They dislike each other but, being strict Catholics, refuse to divorce. After being bounced back and forth between his aunt and uncle, Jeffrey reaches his breaking point. At the spring musical at Jeffrey's school (Jeffrey is in the chorus), which his aunt and uncle attend, he screams at the top of his lungs, "Talk! Talk! Talk!" and then runs away.
Jeffrey begins his search for a new home. He runs for a year, and with his sneakers falling apart, he ends up in Two Mills, a town linked to Bridgeport (the town he grew up in) by the Schuylkill Bridge. The first day he is in Two Mills, he makes four appearances. First, he speaks to a black girl, who appears to be close to his age, named Amanda Beale. She has a suitcase that he discovers is full of books. He borrows a book from her and promises to return it.
Jeffrey's second appearance is at the high school football field. He catches a pass meant for Hands Down, a receiver on the football team. After running all the way to the soccer field, he performs one of his amazing feats — he punts the football back to the football team, a punt that travels farther than any of the football players has ever thrown it, all the while holding onto his borrowed book. Next, he rescues a 10-year-old boy from Finsterwald's backyard, a place that causes terror in all the kids in West End, and then responds to Mrs. Pickwell's whistle when she calls all ten of her children home for dinner. He sits down to a spaghetti dinner with the large family without anyone asking any questions. The next time Jeffrey is noticed is at a Little League game. He again performs incredible feats by hitting John McNab's fastball and bunting a "frogball" for several home runs. Whenever anyone spots Jeffrey he is running — fast. Stories begin to circulate about Jeffrey's amazing feats earning him the nickname "Maniac."
