Inspire your students with this brave story about racism and homelessness. The helpful journal topics offer extended writing activities and discussion prompts. Students come up with possible story ideas that could relate to the title, "maniac". Illustrate the scene between McNab and Maniac. Match quotes to the characters who said them. Students confront the idea of discrimination by identifying some of the ways people discriminate against other people. Find proof from the story to support the different qualities inhabited by Maniac and Grayson. Give meaning to expressions from the story. Identify each expression as a simile or metaphor. Identify a major and minor problem that Maniac faces in the story and explain each in a paragraph. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Maniac Magee is a Newbery Medal winning-story about a young homeless boy running through town and the different people he meets along the way. Orphaned at the age of three, Jeffrey Magee runs away from his Aunt and Uncle eight years later. He finds himself in Two Mills, Pennsylvania, where he realizes the town is split in half—the East End and the West End. Running his way through the town, Magee learns of the hatred and racism that separates the two sides. Along the way, he meets a wide range of interesting characters, and even develops a legend for himself, earning him the nickname "Maniac". He endures hardships while moving from place to place, eventually finding a home in a buffalo pen at the zoo.