Table of Contents

1. Freak the Mighty: Introduction

2. Freak the Mighty: Rodman Philbrick Biography
3. Freak the Mighty: Summary
4. Freak the Mighty: List of Characters
5. Freak the Mighty: Setting
6. Freak the Mighty: Themes
7. Freak the Mighty: Critical Overview
8. Freak the Mighty: Character Analysis



















Freak the Mighty: Introduction
Kevin is brilliant, but his body is so crippled by birth defects that he has to wear
braces on his legs. Max is huge and powerful, but he has been so scarred by life
that he feels dumb and worthless. Independently, each boy seems like half a
person, but when they meet the summer before eighth grade starts, they join
together, becoming inseparable friends as Freak the Mighty.
The novel Freak the Mighty tells the story of one defining year in the boys lives. It
follows them through their first meeting, their summer adventures, their return to
school, and even Maxs Christmas Eve kidnapping at the hands of his murderous
father. Although the boys are eventually reunited, their happiness cannot last
forever. Kevins health problems worsen, leading to his death and the end of Freak
the Mighty. A devastated Max learns how to face the world without his best friend.
Full of what could be trite or maudlin subject mattera learning-disabled narrator,
a physically challenged boy, a convict fatherFreak the Mighty integrates every
element smoothly and naturally. The result is a charming, funny blend of realism
and fairy-tale dreaming that in the end is very moving.

Freak the Mighty: Rodman Philbrick Biography
Like his characters Kevin and Max, author Rodman Philbrick has different names
for different purposes. When he is writing thrillers like Hunger (1992) and Pulse
(1999), he is William R. Dantz, and he has published crime novels under the pen
name of W. R. Philbrick. However, despite the author's shifting identities and
genres, Freak the Mighty (Philbricks first book for young readers) is anchored in
reality. It was inspired by his encounters with a boy who had Morquios Syndrome
(the disease Kevin suffers from in the novel) and a large, protective friend. The
novel is set in the area of New Hampshire where Philbrick grew up and where the
previous ten generations of his family have lived. While his later work has won
awards (drawing him attention) and been filmed (bringing him money), Philbrick
wrote for quite some time before achieving real success, authoring ten novels
before one of them was published. During those years, he worked as a
longshoreman and ran a boatyard with a friend. Philbrick published a sequel to
Freak the Mighty called Max the Mighty in 1998. That same year, a film version of
Freak the Mighty titled just The Mighty was released.







Freak the Mighty: Summary
Max and Kevin met for the first time when they were both in day care. Max was an
angry kid called Kicker because he kicked everyone, while Kevin called himself
Robot Man because of the leg braces he had to wear. Then Kevin stopped coming
to day care, and the boys lost contact until they saw one another briefly in third
grade. The summer before eighth grade, Kevin and his mother moved in next door
to Maxs grandparents house, where he lived in the basement. The boys meet
again when Max helps Kevin get his mechanical bird from the tree where it is
stuck. The two boys become friends, and the two families start visiting back and
forth.
On the Fourth of July, the boys are on their way to see the fireworks when they run
into Tony D. and his gang of teenage thugs. Kevin teases them, and the situation
potentially turns dangerous until a police car shows up.
The boys have a great time watching the fireworks, with Kevin sitting on Maxs
shoulders, but as the crowd breaks up, Tony D. and his friends find them again.
Kevin guides Max as the pair runs away, leaving Tony and his gang stranded in a
muddy pond.
Maxs grandparents are happy that Max was there to help Kevin (though Max
knows it was really Kevin whose quick mind helped him). This starts a happy and
extended partnership between the two boys. Every morning Kevin comes over to
rouse Max, who carries Kevin all over town. They have imaginary quests, such as
looking for dragons, and as they do, Kevin encourages Max to think, dream, and
read. On one of these quests, Kevin guides Max to the hospitals medical research
building, claiming that the hospital staff is developing robot bodies and when they
are ready Kevins identity will be transplanted into one.
Their quests become real one morning when Kevin arranges for Max to get up at 3
a.m. and dress all in black. Kevin then guides Max to a sewer grate where a purse
has fallen. They return it to the owner the next day, which means going into the
tenement housing on the far side of the pond, a poor and crime-ridden place. The
purses owner, Loretta Lee, lives with Iggy Lee, head of a local motorcycle gang.
The adults tease the boys a bit and talk to them; they recognize Max because he
looks so much like his father, Kenny Killer Kane, who is currently in jail.
When school starts, Kevins mother gets the school to agree to let Max and Kevin
be in the same classes so that Max can help Kevin get around. This is a big change
because Kevin is in the advanced classes while Max had been in classes for slow
learners.
The first time their English teacher calls on Max, the other kids start teasing him.
Kevin then climbs up on Maxs shoulders and declares that together they are Freak
the Mighty, winning everyones approval.
Soon after this, Max is called to the principals office, where he learns that his
father will soon be released on parole. Max becomes unhinged and has to be
restrained. Later that day, Kevin is eating chop suey in the school cafeteria and has
a seizure.
That Christmas Eve, after the two friends exchange their first gifts, Max goes to
bed. However, instead of
Santa Claus coming to bring presents, Maxs father, Kenny, sneaks into the house
and kidnaps Max. Kenny takes him first to Iggy and Lorettas place in the
tenements, and then to an old womans home nearby. Kenny claims that Maxs
grandparents have poisoned his mind against his father, so Kenny keeps Max tied
up and explains what Maxs new life will be like.
Because police keep coming around the old womans house, Kenny hides with
Max in a burned-out building across the alley from the tenements. Kenny ties Max
in the basement and then leaves to see if he can get a car. While he is gone, Loretta
sneaks in to help Max escape. They have just managed to cut Max free of the ropes
holding him when Kenny returns and begins choking Loretta for helping Max.
Max attacks his father, screaming that he saw Kenny kill his mother. Kenny turns
his murderous attention on Max, starting to choke him.
Suddenly Kevin shows up with a squirt gun that he claims is filled with acid. He
squirts Kenny in the eyes, and while they are burning (from what is later revealed
to be soap, vinegar, and curry), Max escapes. Kenny is arrested and returned to jail.
The rest of the school year goes well, but once school is out again, Kevin has a
seizure on his birthday. He is taken to the hospital, and it is some time before Max
gets to visit. While he is visiting, Kevin has another attack and Max has to leave.
When Max returns the next day, Kevin has died. Max is distraught and punches
through the glass door to the medical research area. Once he is restrained and
calmed down, Max asks Dr. Spivak, Kevins doctor, about the bionic body. Max
learns that there had never been any plans for onethat it had just been a dream of
Kevins to help him cope with his condition. Max withdraws from the world,
grieving the death of Freak the Mighty for about a year, but eventually heals as he
writes down the story of their adventures and friendship.









Freak the Mighty: List of Characters
Kevin a very smart boy with a growth condition; one half of Freak the Mighty.
Maxwell Kanea large boy being raised by his grandparents after his mothers
death and fathers imprisonment; the other half of Freak the Mighty.
GramMaxs grandmother.
GrimMaxs grandfather.
Gwen Kevins mother.
Tony D.a knife-toting teenage thug.
Loretta Leeowner of a purse found by Freak the Mighty.
Iggy Leechief of the Panheads, a local motorcycle gang.
Kenny KaneMaxs father, the murderer of Maxs mother.
Mrs. Donelli the new English teacher.
Mrs. Addisonthe school principal.
Mr. MeehanMaxs reading-skills tutor.
Chapters 23-25 Summary 14
Dr. Spivakthe doctor caring for Kevin in the hospital.
























Freak the Mighty: Setting
While Philbrick has indicated that Freak the Mighty was to be set in and around
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he went to high school, the larger
geographical location plays almost no part in the book. There are not, for example,
distinctive weather, flora, or accents. Instead, two general categories provide all the
settings for the action: social settings (especially domestic settings) and imaginary
settings.
The first social setting is a series of snapshots of day care or school encounters
between Kevin and Max. The main setting initially explored is Maxs basement
bedroom, which is as much a cave or a refuge as it is a bedroom. The paneled walls
buckle, but down under is a place for Max to hide away from an unfriendly
world. It is a run-down and depressing place, but it is at least his own. Except for
Kevins house, the other social/domestic settings are even more depressing. When
the boys visit the New Tenements (called the New Testaments), it is a sad and
broken environment, one where people have no hope. Maxs father takes him to an
old womans home, where they are intruders, and then to the filthy basement of a
burned-out building. The conclusion is clear: in the world of Freak the Mighty,
most homes are symbols of the torn and crippled families that live in them. The
larger social settings, such as the school, town, or hospital, are not always as
depressing, but they are just as threatening and violent. Max never knows when a
gang of thugs will threaten him or when an entire school classroom will start
making fun of him. Here too the novel gives clear messages through its settings:
communities are not always welcoming, and they will violently reject you if you
are different. The main exception to this comes when Max is with Kevin and the
two boys escape into imaginary settings.
Just as Kevin dreams of an escape into a bionic body free of pain, so the boys
change a threatening town into a landscape for adventure. The imaginary settings
are what make the world portrayed in Freak the Mighty livable.












Freak the Mighty: Themes
In Chapter 12, when the other kids tease Max for being slow under pressure, Kevin
climbs up on his shoulders and announces that together they are Freak the
Mighty. This explicit transformation is only one of many radical changes that
occur throughout the novel. Some changes are only hypothetical or longed for, as
when Kevin claims that his identity will be transplanted into an experimental
bionic body. Some changes are linguistic but symbolic: it matters that Max calls
his grandparents Grim and Gram. This makes them sound flattened and
cartoonish, like fairy-tale creatures with titles rather than names. Other changes
begin as imaginary but become real, as when the boys go on the quests that Kevin
guides. Some changes are only superficialfor example, when Maxs father,
Kenny, claims to have found religion while in prison, but remains a profoundly
cold and disturbing figure. Some of these changes are physical. Maxs marked
growth is commented on throughout the novel, and Kevins physical problems,
though they come from a birth defect, are repeatedly boiled down to the idea that
his insides are growing faster than his outsides. Through the example of people
like Iggy and Loretta (who can do the right thing even when they are scared),
through his grandparents love, and through Kevins complete acceptance, Max
grows up much healthier and much more whole. The book itself is evidence of this
transformation. Before meeting Kevin, Max never would have written anything
voluntarily. Afterward, he writes an entire book, just to memorialize his friend and
tell their story.

Love and Friendship
When Freak the Mighty starts, Max is in retreat from life. He is angry and thinks
people do not really care about him. He speaks of that year of the phony hugs.
He sees the negative in people because he thinks that people only see the negative
in him. Despite this, Max is innately kind. When he sees Kevins toy stuck in a
tree, he is moved to help him. Though Kevin has many reasons to be withdrawn
he is an incredibly smart boy with a birth defect that keeps him dwarfishly small
he responds in kind, and more. He is convinced he has no brain at all before he and
Kevin become friends, but Kevins love transforms him. When his grandparents
had taken him in and loved Max, he feared that the loss of Maxs mother (and their
hatred of Maxs father) made it impossible for them to really love him. He did not
let them, or his assigned helpers, like his reading-skills teacher, ever really do
anything for him. Kevin, by contrast, simply ignored his protests, gave him gifts, a
new name (Freak the Mighty), a new identity, and a connection to the world. The
depth of their friendship can be seen in the fact that Kevin is willing to face a killer
with just a squirt gun for Max, and that Max is willing to literally punch through
glass doors to try to get Kevin his bionic body.

Freak the Mighty: Critical Overview
Freak the Mighty has won numerous awardsa Judy Lopez Memorial Award
Honor, the New York Charlotte Award, and young reader or childrens book
awards from several states. Critics have praised several aspects of the novel,
especially how emotionally moving the story is. Libby White specifically notes the
books empathy for its characters. Nancy Vasilakis highlights the novels plot and
the authors ability to articulate universal human themes through uncommon
characters. Writing for the Times of London, Nicolette Jones calls the book a
small classic and celebrates the novels use of language. Marilyn Makowski notes
the novels unique voice and praises its pacing.
A rare exception comes from Publishers Weekly, where an anonymous reviewer
labels the books actions as improbable, the characters as clichs, and the
emotional ending as cloying. Reviewing the novel for Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin
agrees about Freaks improbabilities, but she argues that they do not occur to the
reader until after the suspense and the intense emotion of the friendship and
adventures have passed.



Freak the Mighty: Character Analysis
Maxwell Kane is called Max by his grandparents. Some people called him
Kicker because of the way he used to lash out when he was upset. Kids have
named him Maxi Pad, but Max is happiest when he is being Freak the Mighty, a
composite creation made up of himself and Kevin.
When he is alone, as he is when the novel opens, Max is so isolated he barely
knows that he is lonely.
This is because of the hard life he has led. Before Max was born, his mother got
involved with Kenny Kane. This isolated her, because her parents did not approve
of Kenny. When Max was four, Kenny killed Maxs mother. Max tried to stop his
father, but his dad, who is both massive and cruel, put him in a closet. Physically,
Max looks like his dad. He is so large that people fear him, and sometimes his
emotions overwhelm him. Mentally, Max is essentially crippled by the trauma and
isolation that have defined his life, so much so that he ends up in learning-disabled
classes. Emotionally, Max is pure and sweet, and rather young for his age. While it
is Kevin who insists the boys go on adventures, it is Max who is as pure of heart as
a knight.


Kevin is the opposite of Max in everything except heart. Whereas Max lost a
mother, Kevin lost his father, who abandoned his mother when he learned that
Kevin had a birth defect. Physically, Kevin is tiny, almost a dwarf. However,
mentally, he is as much a giant as Max is a physical giant. Just as his heart is too
big for his body in a literal sense (one element of his medical troubles), so his
imagination and intellect are too big for his confining body, situation, and social
context. He cannot walk unassisted, so he conjures up a dream of being a robot.
His body is vulnerable, so he dreams of being a knight on a quest, complete with
armor and physical prowess. His crowning moment is when he blends knightly
heroism and mental agility that is pure Freak: when he faces down a murderer with
a squirt gun full of pretend acid in order to save his friend Max. Kevins body
eventually fails him, but like the legend of King Arthur that Kevin shares with
Max, Kevins story lives on to inspire others.

Kenny Kane is Maxs father, and although he appears physically in only the final
third of the novel, his shadow darkens the entire book. He is the books villain, and
a genuine one, a threat that makes switchblade-wielding thugs like Tony D. seem
harmless. At one point in Freak the Mightys quest to recover a lost purse, Kevin
dresses as Darth Vader, but Kenny is so threatening because he is the novels true
Vader. Killer Kane embodies the dark side of all the novels themes. Instead of
helping those he loves, he kills his wife and kidnaps his son. Instead of real
change, he offers false change. To support his sense of identity, he lives a world of
imagined superiority, sneering at the police, at Maxs grandparents, and at
everyone who leads a normal life. Kenny is chilling because he believes so
powerfully in his own nightmare world, where every violent act is justified.

Iggy and Loretta Lee waver between being clichd characters and being role
models for very believable transformation. In doing so, they show how the world
shifts for Max as he learns more about it. When he first meets Iggy and Loretta,
they are almost cartoonish in their lack of development. Loretta is ratty, and Iggy
pushy, and both seem more like they are drawn from older pulp novels than from
the same level of reality as the other characters. However, like the Arthurian
knights that Kevin so loves, these characters too can change. Although they help
Kenny kidnap Max at first, later in the novel they help Max escape. Iggy is
humanized by the way he chews on his beard in fear, and Loretta by the way she,
in the novels final pages, comes to care about Max without ceasing to be the
chain-smoking heavy drinker she has always been.


Gram and Grim, Maxs grandparents, were never as flatly drawn as Iggy and
Loretta, but Maxs emotional pain flattens them early in the novel. Just as he keeps
them at bay physically by living down under, so he keeps them distant in the
narrative. The first step in this is labeling them Gram and Grim rather than
giving their names. The second is continually recasting their actions in terms of
their fear. As the novel progresses, though, Max becomes unable to deny that they
love him and are doing their best, and they round into more complex, if troubled,
characters.

MAX KEVIN KENNY

CONCLUSION
I CANT SAY ANYTHING MORE THAN A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND INDEED