”Milkweed” by Jerry Spinelli

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli published September 9, 2003. The book is about a Gypsy kid who has no name. He meets a group of kids and they name him Misha. Another character is Janina who is spoiled and always gets what she wants. Uri is the character who is the boss and he tells everybody what to do. The story takes place in Warsaw, Poland. The time was during World War II when the Nazi’s took control of the Jewish people in Warsaw. In this book you will go with Misha through some of his problems like staying in a refugee camp, celebrating Hanukkah, trying to smuggle food for his adopted family and orphans and how he survived the war. The high point of the story is when the Jews get deported on the trains and Misha and Janina get separated. What happens at the ending of the book is the opposite of what you will think. The author was trying to tell the reader through a kids eyes about the Holocaust. By writing the story and telling it through the eyes of Misha it was easier to feel and experience what they went through and how they were feeling.

The author did achieve his purpose because now I know what was happening to the people during this time. I agree with the authors point of view because he went through Misha as the narrator and that helped me understand what the kids and the other people were going through. What affected me was the action of the story by how it made me feel and was very interesting to keep me wanting to read the whole book. When living in the city Misha and the other orphans who are Jews realize what they can and can not do and they are not excepted by the other people. The strong point in the book is when the town Misha goes to gets attacked by the German’s and all the Jew’s are sent to a ghetto. There in the ghetto he meets Janina who he becomes friends with and treats her like his sister. The amount of food in the ghetto becomes scarce so he leaves the ghetto to try and find food for his family.

One day him and his family get caught and get sent to a concentration camp. The only thing that keeps him and his family alive is that he can escape and go into the city and steal food. I think the writing is very effective because there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the book and how the author wrote about it made it very interesting. I like the book a lot because I enjoy learning about the events that occurred in the Holocaust. I thought the book was moving because you see the point of view of a kid who doesn’t know himself and his true identity. He happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time (Warsaw, Poland during WWII,) and he was mistaken for a Jew and wrongly placed in a concentration camp even though he didn’t know if he was a Jew or not. I recommend the book for others to read because it is interesting from the beginning to the end. You would not know what happened during the Holocaust if you didn’t read this book of the experience through a kids eyes.