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Freak the Mighty
"The down under" is the basement room belonging to Max, the narrator in Rodman Philbrick's novel Freak the Mighty. It is introduced in the second chapter, titled "Up from the Down Under." This is a...
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Freak the Mighty
Since you have already outlined two differences between the book version of Freak the Mighty and the movie adaptation, let's focus on explaining how and/or why those differences manifest. First,...
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Freak the Mighty
In the beginning of the novel, Max's grandfather, Grim, remarks to his wife, whom Max calls Gram, that Max looks so much "like Him," meaning Maxwell's father. Maxwell notes that his grandfather...
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Freak the Mighty
In Rodman Philbrick's novel Freak the Mighty, Max is not so much bothered by Freak's speaking as he is amazed by it. Max has never encountered anyone who speaks like Freak, whose real name is...
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Reference
There is definitely a strong theme of family and friendship in Freak the Mighty. What's nice about this story is that the family and friendship theme is not always a nice "feel good" theme, either....
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Freak the Mighty
In Philbrick's Freak the Mighty, Kevin suffers from a physically debilitating disease. He explains to his friend, Max, that his interior is growing faster than his exterior. Because of this, Kevin...
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Freak the Mighty
In Rodman Philbrick's novel Freak the Mighty, Max is the main character. The novel is told from his point of view. The novel is about the symbiotic friendship that Max forms with Kevin, and their...
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Freak the Mighty
In chapter 4 of Philbrick's Freak the Mighty, Kevin is introduced to Max's makeshift basement bedroom. The boys like hanging out in Max's room because it is as dark and as private as a cave. It's...
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Freak the Mighty
Some of the first things the reader hears about Max's father come from the character of Grim. Grim, of course, is the nickname Max gives to his grandfather who has taken him in. Grim's opinions...
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Freak the Mighty
Kevin ("Freak") doesn't fear anything in Freak the Mighty. He has a birth defect that leaves him with a leg brace and crutches. Others judge and stare, but he isn't bothered by it in the...
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Freak the Mighty
The main character of Rodman Philbrick's Freak the Mighty is Maxwell Kane, the son of Kenneth "Killer" Kane, who was convicted for murdering Maxwell's mother via strangulation. Maxwell's struggle...
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Freak the Mighty
In chapter two of Philbrick's Freak the Mighty, it is the first day of July and Max is bored. He goes outside for a change of scenery from his basement bedroom and sees a local moving van. There's...
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Freak the Mighty
Grim and Gram have had their grandson Max with them ever since their daughter was killed by her husband about ten years earlier. During this time, they have provided him with a room of his own,...
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Freak the Mighty
When Killer Kane, otherwise known as Max's father, Kenneth David Kane, gets released from prison and comes to kidnap his son, he ends up tying Max's hands and feet together, and tying that same...
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Freak the Mighty
The short answer is that they hang out and become friends. This happens in Chapter 3, right as Max sees Kevin leaping up, trying unsuccessfully to reach an object that has become stuck in a tree....
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Freak the Mighty
The opening lines of Philbrick's Freak the Mighty inform the reader about one of the first things Kevin does for Max: he teaches him how to use his brain. "I never had a brain until Freak came...
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Freak the Mighty
The reader has to use inference to answer this question because we are not specifically told exactly why the Lees' apartment smells like cats. Inference, of course, is a conclusion that is based...
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Freak the Mighty
Kevin loves his mom dearly and tries his best to do what she tells him to. You can tell this by the way he obeys her when she tells him to leave the moving crew alone in Chapter 2, and by how he...
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Freak the Mighty
Whenever people face the same trials or adversity together, a bond is bound to form. This is no different for Max and Kevin in Philbrick's Freak the Mighty. The first conflict they face together is...
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Freak the Mighty
Kevin's mom is a beautiful woman, and he calls her "the Fair Gwen" because "Gwen" is her first name, "fair" means "beautiful," and because "the Fair Gwen" was also the name of a famous queen from...
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Freak the Mighty
When someone is biased, it means that they hold unreasonable, and possibly hostile, feelings towards others from a specific group of people. Since Kevin and Max are in middle school, Tony D., the...
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Freak the Mighty
In Philbrick's Freak the Mighty, Maxwell has a difficult time learning, so his grandparents sign him up for the resource classes. When Freak discovers that his big friend is not as skilled at...
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Freak the Mighty
In the chapter titled "American Chop Suey," after Kevin (Freak) nearly chokes to death, Max shows more concern for his friend than for himself by running to the nurse's office for help, pushing the...
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Freak the Mighty
The characters in Philbrick's Freak the Mighty are not luxurious millionaires in the least. Max's grandparents are lower-middle-class citizens who have probably lived in their home for a very long...
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Freak the Mighty
This sentence from Chapter 3 of the novel contains a simile: a comparison between two things. The narrator, Max, compares Kevin's toy to a bird. By describing how the ornithopter (mechanical bird...
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Freak the Mighty
In short, Freak changes Max from being "vegetative" to being imaginative through his suggestions for quests inspired by Freak’s love of reading. Before Freak and Max become friends, Max spends...
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Freak the Mighty
Chapter 12 starts off with a lighthearted mood of friendship, joy, and relief. You can tell by the way Max says "that really gets me laughing," "I'm rolling on the ground like a moron and Freak is...
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Freak the Mighty
The first time Max meets Iggy is in chapter 11 when he and Kevin return Loretta's wallet to her. When Loretta first sees the boys, one very large and the other small, she calls to Iggy to come see...
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Freak the Mighty
Blade is the nickname for a boy from the high school named Tony D. He got the name "Blade" because he always carries around a knife and threatens kids whom he thinks are weak. That is why he picks...
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Freak the Mighty
Freak calls his English class a zoo. We'll find this answer toward the very end of the book, in Freak's Dictionary, the special section of word definitions and jokes created by the character Freak....
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Freak the Mighty
Maxwell Kane is Kenny Kane's son who has lived with his mother's parents for the last ten years. Kenny Kane, also known as Killer Kane, has been in jail for all of that time. Once he makes parole,...
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Freak the Mighty
1. "Like, hey, who's the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf; and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh my gawd that's disgusting." This is what runs through...
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Freak the Mighty
Maxwell Kane lives with his mother's parents. His grandpa made his a bedroom in the basement, which isn't much to look at, but he actually calls it the "down under." When life gets really difficult...
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Freak the Mighty
Max and Freak (Kevin) are best friends. They seem like the two most unlikely boys to become friends, but, actually, it works out well for the both of them. In the beginning, Max, who is also the...
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Freak the Mighty
Kevin and Maxwell are friends who find a way to survive life as misfits by joining forces. Kevin suffers from birth defects that affect his ability to walk without crutches. Max, on the other hand,...
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Freak the Mighty
Kenny Kane kidnaps his son Max from the grandparents' house in chapter 16 of Philbrick's Freak the Mighty. From the onset, Kane continually tells the young teenager that Max's grandparents poisoned...
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Freak the Mighty
Right before Max is kidnapped by his father, Killer Kane says the following to his son on Christmas Eve: “I know what they told you. It’s all a big lie, you understand? I never killed anybody,...
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Freak the Mighty
In Chapter One, Max discusses how he behaved in day-care the year that Grim and Gram took him under their legal guardianship. He felt like everyone was always trying to hug him, so he kicked...
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Freak the Mighty
Kevin is amazing because he doesn't believe that his friend Max can't learn. In an effort to help Max to believe in himself, Kevin appoints himself as Max's tutor. First, Kevin introduces Max to...
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Freak the Mighty
In chapter seven, Max and Kevin join forces to escape the attack of Tony D. and his gang. With Kevin on Max's shoulders, Kevin does the thinking and directing while Max does the running. They end...
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Freak the Mighty
"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" means that putting separate parts together to make a whole creates something greater. This is exactly what Max and Kevin discover they can do...
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Freak the Mighty
In Chapter 8, Max says that he usually just reads comic books or watches TV each day of summer vacation. Sometimes he will emerge to go to the store with Gram, but that's not very exciting. After...
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Freak the Mighty
In Chapter 8, Max explains his typical summer before Kevin entered his life. He usually slept in as long as he liked, read comic books and watched TV all day. Kevin isn't about wasting a minute of...
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Freak the Mighty
A narrative hook is a literary technique used by authors to "hook" the reader into reading more; it grabs the reader's attention. It is generally a single sentence. It could be a quote, a bold...
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Freak the Mighty
"Grim" and "Gram" are the special nicknames Max uses for his grandparents, but those aren't their real names, and they aren't the names that the grandparents call each other. Although Grim rarely...
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Freak the Mighty
Maxwell Kane is kidnapped by his murderous father, Killer Kane. Iggy and Loretta Lee once knew Kane, so he calls on them to help him so he can get out of town with Max. Iggy and Loretta have to be...
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Freak the Mighty
I have never thought twice about Grim's name until I read your question. I just figured that was the nickname that Max called his grandfather. He calls his grandmother Gram, so Grim seemed to...
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Freak the Mighty
In literature, tone is the author's attitude towards the story or subject-matter. Look for words, style, and voice that represent how the author is trying to convey a message to the reader. Since...
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Freak the Mighty
I would go even further and say that the interaction between the two boys is the entire point of the plot development in Freak the Mighty. In the exposition, we learn about Kevin’s and Max’s...
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Freak the Mighty
In chapter seven of Philbrick's Freak the Mighty, Kevin and Max go to the Fourth of July celebration in town. Since Max has to carry Kevin on his shoulders, he's in full control of where they go...
