Heartwarming / Maniac Magee

• The entire relationship between Maniac and the Beales. Amanda is his first friend ever in Two Mills, Hester and Lester adore him, Mr. Beale makes an immediate U-turn and takes Maniac home when the he confesses he doesn't have a family, and Mrs. Beale decides after ten seconds of explanation that he'll stay with them. He's welcomed so readily into the family that the months he spends at that house are some of his happiest. He runs away when their house is graffiti'd and again when Amanda's Encyclopedia A is destroyed, both times to protect them. When he returns to the East End in the spring, Hester and Lester find him and take him home again. He has to sneak out of the house at dawn to return to the McNabs - "the only way he'd ever manage to get away". Finally, at the very end, Mars Bar takes Amanda to the zoo in the middle of the night so she can yell at him and drag him back to the house for good. ("This is not your home! Now move!") This family really genuinely loves the random white kid their daughter brought home one day, and their message is absolutely clear: Maniac might be different and he might cause them a little trouble, but they could not care less, and he isn't allowed to decide for them. They're his family.
• Maniac and Grayson spending the winter holidays together.
  • On Thanksgiving, they go to a baseball game in the morning, and after stuffing themselves on the best Thanksgiving meal either of them had ever had, they dance to Grayson's old polka records. Maniac decides to make his new home a bit more formal by painting a 101 on the door, calling it "101 Band Shell Boulevard."
  • On Christmas, they go all out with decorating the tree, then Maniac's entire apartment, and then going up to decorate another tree out in the forest. Grayson presents his old treasured glove to Maniac, rendering the boy speechless.
• Maniac taking Mars Bar to the Pickwells, and both being readily accepted to the dinner table. One of the Pickwell kids actually calls Mars "Mr. Bar". He almost smiles.
• Grayson learning to read.
  • "A-men."