63 pages • 2 hours read
Jerry SpinelliA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Maniac packs his things from the baseball room and wanders all over various towns in the cold. He avoids looking at the trolley trestle where his parents died near the Schuylkill River. At night, he sleeps in the zoo, in abandoned cars, or on empty stairwells; he works odd jobs for food. One night, he ends up at the Valley Forge monument and hides away in one of the small cabin replicas, waiting and wanting to die because he feels that he doesn’t deserve to have a real family. His previous caregivers haunt him, and he vows to never let himself be orphaned again.
Days later, Maniac meets two eight-year-old boys from Two Mills named Russell and Piper who are hiding in another cabin. They have run away from home and plan to go to Mexico. Concerned for their safety, Maniac lies and claims that they have won free pizza but must go back to Two Mills to claim it. He says that he will show them a shortcut to Mexico if they go back with him, and they agree. Maniac uses his prize for untying Cobble’s Knot to get pizza for the boys. After eating their pizza, they run into John McNab, the boy who once pitched the frog at Maniac, and Maniac discovers that the boys are McNab’s little brothers.
By Jerry Spinelli
Crash
Jerry Spinelli
Fourth Grade Rats
Jerry Spinelli
Jake and Lily
Jerry Spinelli
Loser
Jerry Spinelli
Love, Stargirl
Jerry Spinelli
Milkweed
Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl
Jerry Spinelli
There's a Girl in my Hammerlock
Jerry Spinelli
Third Grade Angels
Jerry Spinelli
Wringer
Jerry Spinelli
Class
View Collection
Class
View Collection
Coming-of-Age Journeys
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
Newbery Medal & Honor Books
View Collection
Popular Study Guides
View Collection
Realistic Fiction (High School)
View Collection
Required Reading Lists
View Collection
School Book List Titles
View Collection