jerry spinelli's milkweed caught my eye during a library visit at albany park when i was subbing. the row of gold book spines looked so crisp and neat, i amazoned to see what the novel was about. i learned that it was a story about a young gypsy or jewish thief living in nazi-occupied warsaw. it sounded interesting but i didn't decide to check it out until after i read the diary of a young girl and night.
this book was an unexpected delight. i had no idea what it was about but i guess you can judge a book by its spine.
it is the tale of a holocaust-era robin hood, stopthief. stopthief was an orphan who might have been a gypsy. his origins are unknown, he had no recollection of his family, only memories of stealing to eat. while stealing bread from a woman, he met uri would took stopthief under his wing and helped him survive nazi-occupied poland. uri created a backstory for uri and renamed him misha pilsudski.
before i continue i have to share how much i loved uri and how he selfishly cared for misha. misha was the hero of this story but uri was definitely his guardian angel.
uri and misha stole food to survive but they had a strict moral code and only stole what was needed and shared with others. they shared their loot with a gang of boys but also orphans living in a home. misha also befriended a young girl, janina, and helped her family by them providing food. food during this time was scarce and thankfully misha and uri used their talents to steal for good use. though they were often called filthy thieves and jews, they had hearts of gold and helped without realizing they were.
the reader follows misha through a series of dark and horrific events, the nazi invasion of the warsaw, bombings by russia, life in the ghetto and deportation to the concentration camps. it's all very heavy but filtered through the innocence of misha it is easier to digest and being a young adult novel, easier for young readers to comprehend what occurred during the holocaust.
misha, like most children, i would image, during the holocaust did not completely understand the horrors of the nazis. as demonstrated in night even adults were unaware of what was happening to the jews. misha's innocence and naïveté was endearing and demonstrated just how preposterous and evil the nazi party was because the reality was unconceivable to misha's young mind. for example, misha desire to be a nazi so that he could march in a parade, he had no idea of what they were doing, he just liked parades. or how he always identified himself as gypsy when called a jew not knowing it was unfavorable to be either. the best example was his desire to follow the trains to the ovens not knowing what was occurring at the camps. but what made him special was not knowing that his thieving provided so much. looking for coals was a game to him, little did he know the warmth he gave to the orphans. as he grew older he started to understand and did his best to provide for those he loved, as demonstrated in his trying to find a pickled egg for janina when she had lost all hope.
another stark contrast to misha's innocence was the street gang boy's sarcasm. it was sad to see the boys talk about life without the blind faith in happiness that kids have. instead the kids talked of death so matter of fact because of what they had lived through. but it was sweet when they talked about angels or mothers or angles , things that made them hopeful about life.
also the title milkweed came for this idea of angels. while in the cemetery the boys come across a headstone and discussed angels. misha later took janina explained angels to her. later, janina found a milkweed puff on her shirt and called it her angel. and so milkweed became angels and gave the kids hope.
in every book, i read i am still shocked by what the jews had to endure. i couldn't imagine resorting to eating rats or standing out in the snow and having to relief myself on myself. or walking around with the dead bodies covered by newspapers. it was also horrible to read how the soldiers and their girlfriends treated the jews like a freak show, taking pictures and watching them
fight over bread like birds. though i did appreciated how spinelli included misha's craziness that occurred from having survived and needing to share what he experienced. how difficult to endure all that only to be expected to function as though it hadn't in a new foreign land. the stress this must have caused justified misha's craziness. thankfully, misha ended up with a happy ending with his daughter and granddaughter.
this book was a really wonderful story about a very dark period in history. its a story filled with hope and compassion with the world seemed to be void of it.
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