Uri said, “Stay away from Jackboots.”
“They smile,” I said.
“They hate you.”
I laughed. “They don’t hate me. They say, ‘Very good, little Gypsy.’ They salute me. I want to be a Jackboot.”
He smacked me in the face. My babka went flying. “You’re not a Jackboot. You’ll never be a Jackboot. You are what you are.”
(from Milkweed, page 22)
Milkweed is the tale of a young boy alone on the streets of Warsaw at the beginning of World War II who uses his small size and quick feet to survive. He is taken in by Uri, the leader of a group of Jewish orphans who are homeless and steal food (and sometimes other things) to survive. The little boy doesn’t know his name or how old he is, and he doesn’t remember his family. He wears a yellow stone around his neck, which he believes came from his father, and he insists he is a Gypsy, not a Jew. Jerry Spinelli opens the book rather abruptly with the young boy stealing a loaf of bread and then meeting Uri for the first time. Uri invents the young boy’s past and gives him a name, Misha Pilsudski, and Misha is so entranced by the story that he believes it is true.
While scavenging for food, Misha meets 6-year-old Janina, whom he grows to love as a sister. When Janina’s family is forced to move to the Warsaw Ghetto, Misha brings her family food, and when he and the other homeless boys are rounded up by the “Jackboots,” or Nazis, and brought to the ghetto after it is sealed off from the rest of the city, Misha comes face-to-face with death and hunger. Yet his small size and quick feet enable him to fit through a two-brick opening in the wall, and he joins many other children in smuggling food into the ghetto.
Misha becomes part of Janina’s family, and although Janina’s mother never embraces him, her father and eventually her uncle do. He wears the armband that the Jews are required to wear, he celebrates Hanukkah with them in their small room, he moves from a bed of rubble with the other boys to the family’s cramped room, and stands at attention with them during line ups. When the Nazis begin liquidating the ghetto in 1942, the book takes on an even more ominous tone.
Milkweed is a heartbreaking story told from the point of view of a young, naïve boy. Spinelli does a wonderful job showing the horrors of the war through Misha’s eyes, and even though I was able to decipher his childish observations and knew what he was seeing and what would happen to the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto, I felt like I was experiencing it with Misha. Oh, how I wanted to see what Misha saw: the doctor who runs the orphanage marching the children happily to the ghetto and the awesomeness of hundreds of marching soldiers and huge tanks moving into the city. I wanted everything to be okay, but I knew better…and Misha should have, too.
The biggest problem I had with Milkweed was Misha’s naivety. While we never know for sure how old Misha is, Janina guesses that based on his size in comparison to hers, he is about 8. I know that 8-year-olds are innocent and may not understand things such as war, but Misha saw things with his own eyes, things that were obviously horrible, yet he continued to not understand. He sees the Nazis forcing a Jewish man to scrub the sidewalk with his beard. He sees another Jew stripped naked and blasted with cold water in the winter, and yet another Jew strapped onto a horse backward and on his stomach. After seeing these things, Misha says he is glad he is not a Jew, but he does not heed the warnings about blending in with people on the street, he believes the Jackboots are smiling at him in a friendly way, and he thinks the crowds plodding toward the ghetto are marching in a parade. Beyond the things that he witnesses, one would assume that he would mature with the passage of time, but it is difficult to gauge how much time has passed due to the choppy narrative. But Milkweed opens in 1939 with the start of the war, the ghetto was created in 1940, and the Jews were shipped out of the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942, so time passes, yet Misha never seems to grow wiser.
I also had issues with the end of the book, beginning with the liquidation of the ghetto. The events that transpire involving Misha seem farfetched, and Spinelli just rushes through these scenes and the years after the war. These are the scenes where Spinelli could have shown character evolution, but they seem like an afterthought, with decades passing in a matter of sentences.
However, it pains me to write these paragraphs about the book because even though these thoughts must be expressed, I really liked Milkweed. Spinelli brings a lot of important themes to the forefront, namely whether it is possible for children to retain their innocence when death and brutality surround them and invade every aspect of their lives and the importance of identity with regard to survival. Misha had no identity during a time when what you were was a matter of life and death. Milkweed is an powerful book that despite its flaws, made me cry and will not be forgotten anytime soon.
Disclosure: I borrowed Milkweed from my local library. I am an IndieBound affiliate and an Amazon associate.
© 2011 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
I am so happy to see your post on Milkweed-I totally love this book-in fact I also really like the ending-how did you like how the narrator ended up?-do you think the narrator is to be seen as mentally challenged, even as an adult he seems nearly so-?
To me this book should get much more respect than it seems to-great much appreciated and needed post-thanks
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I agree that this book should get more attention. Although I thought there were a few flaws, overall it was very well done. I guess it’s possible that the narrator was mentally challenged, which could explain his immaturity regarding the events of the war even as he aged. I’m not sure I buy the ending, but that could be because I thought the book was on fast forward at this point and that how Misha fares in the end was less important to the author than the events that transpired in the ghetto.
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I love his Stargirl books, but this is obviously a very different kind of read. I’ve seen this around but never really knew what it was about. Thanks for the review!
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I hadn’t heard of this author until the WWII challenge a couple years back when participant reviews grabbed my attention. Not sure I’d be interested in reading his other work, though.
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Well, if the book made you cry, it must be well written.
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So true! Despite the few flaws I felt I had to mention, the book was really good and very emotional.
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I’ve read other books by Jerry Spinelli. He’s a wonderful author, and this book sounds heart-rending. Wonderful review!
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Thanks, Suko!
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Not so good being a gypsy either, sounds sad, but then all these books are sad
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Exactly! I was thinking the same thing when I was reading it. But it just shows how much Misha didn’t understand.
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This book sounds so much different than the books this author usually writes. It sounds like one of those books that deals with difficult subjects that stay with you long after.
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That’s what I’ve been hearing, and now I’m curious about the author’s other books, though not sure I’ll be reading them.
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Children grow up too fast in the face of great adversity. Life will make them age far beyond their years when trauma slams into their world. If only we could protect every child against ever having to live through war.
Your review … one word… brillant. You put me to shame – gulps… I have a lot to learn from you my dear. Bravo – an honest and well written piece. Perfect.
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Oh, thank you so much for the kind words! They really mean a lot to me, especially since I spent a lot of time on this review wondering how to express myself clearly and show that I did really like the book despite having a few problems with it. Thank you!
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I’ve pretty much read and loved everything Spinelli has written but I have yet to read this one. Loved your emotional response to this one and I will have to make time for this book.
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I hope you get a chance to read it. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
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Sounds like an interesting book. Wonder if this book is not a tale of a boy experiencing the world as it is, but as he uses defense mechanisms to cope. Maybe he’s not naive, but merely trying to avoid the inevitability of the situation. Just a theory without having read the book. Seems like you enjoyed it regardless of the few problems.
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It doesn’t seem to be used as a coping mechanism to me. I bought his naivety at the beginning, but years pass and he sees horrible things yet still doesn’t grow in this knowledge. If I saw people get killed for a certain thing, I think I could gather that it’s not something I’d want to do, too, unless I wanted to die. And if I saw the Nazis doing the killing, I wouldn’t think they were people to be admired. I don’t think he could live in those conditions for years and not come to an understand of the situation, especially as he’s grown older. I guess you just have to read it to get what I’m saying.
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Oh my goodness, this sounds like such an unforgettable read! I finished Sarah’s Key not too long ago and that one broke my heart. I have been reading lighter books before I can pick up another emotionally heavy read. I love reading your reviews because I get such a good perspective of what a book is about.
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Thanks! I’m glad you enjoy them. That means a lot to me.
Sarah’s Key definitely is a tear-jerker!
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[…] Persons by Ghita Schwarz (post-WWII) 31. My Vicksburg by Ann Rinaldi (American Civil War) 32. Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (WWII) 33. Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer (WWII) 34. The Lost Wife by […]
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I just finished the book and felt exactly the same way you did about it. I also wondered if Misha was mentally challenged. I wondered it often throughout the book from just a little after the beginning till the very end. I loved the book, at the end I was blown away. But what stuck with me was wanting to know more about Misha. The biggest question I had was, was he mentally challenged and was I supposed to think he was? I started searching the internet to see if the author would say more about this, but couldn’t find anything but your post. It helped to know that someone thought the same way I did about the book. On the authors site I saw many people ask about what happened to Janina and what happened to Uri. Others said they would be interested in another book written from the viewpoint of Uri. I thought that was a good idea too. Thanks for your input about the story!
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Susan, thank you for stopping by. Glad you enjoyed the review. I think what happened to Janina was obvious (wanting to avoid spoilers here), but I was curious about Uri. I really wish the author would have given us more insight into Misha’s mind, whether he was mentally challenged. It seemed that way when the book moved forward to his life years after the war. Honestly, it’s the only explanation that makes sense the more that I think about it.
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To repeat my first concept, if you see the lead character at the end of the story, how even his found family treats him, he clearly is mentally challenged which explains why he does not develop
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I can see how that assumption can be made at the end of the story, but during the rest of the story, when he is a young boy, it’s not all that clear, which makes it a bit frustrating. I wonder if the target audience, middle grade readers, would pick up on that? Thanks for stopping by, Mel!
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