"Mafatu's name means Stout Heart, but people call him a coward. He fears the sea because it killed his mother when he was a baby. And so, though his father is the Great Chief of Hikueru--an island whose seafaring people worship courage--he is afraid.".

"He wasn't born with the name Maniac Magee. He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend. Even today kids talk about how fast he could run; about how he hit an inside-the-park "frog" homer; how no knot, no matter how snarled, would stay that way once he began to untie it. But the thing Maniac Magee is best known for is what he did for the kids...