In the book, Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli uses descriptive details, dialogue, actions, and thoughts to develop one of the main characters, Amanda Beale. Amanda came into the story when she met Maniac as he was on his trip of running away and gave him a book. Shortly after, Maniac started to live with her, and is now a part of her family. Amanda is a very helpful person so the character trait that I picked for her was helpful. The scene in the kitchen stopped them cold: one little girl, eyes wide, standing on a countertop; one little boy, eyes wide, standing just below her on a chair; one shattered glass jar and some stringy pale- colored glop on the floor; one growing cloud of sauerkraut fumes. The girl was Hester, age four; the boy was Lester,
