Two Mills and Norristown
The imaginary town of Two Mills is based on Jerry Spinelli’s childhood town of Norristown, PA. Spinelli has said that material from the story was inspired by his childhood experiences there, and a number of geographical correspondences confirm this. Norristown, like Two Mills, is across the Schuylkill River from Bridgeport, and neighboring towns include Conshohocken, Jeffersonville and Worcester, all of which are mentioned in the novel. The Elmwood Park Zoo is in Norristown, and Valley Forge, where Maniac wanders, is nearby as well.
Read more about this topic: Maniac Magee
Famous quotes containing the word mills:
“You haf slafed your life away in de bosses’ mills and your fadhers before you and your kids after you yet. Vat is a man to do with seventeen-fifty a week? His wife must work nights to make another ten, must vork nights and cook and wash in day an’ vatfor? So that the bosses can get rich an’ the stockholders and bondholders. It is too much... ve stood it before because ve vere not organized. Now we have union... We must all stand together for union.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)