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Milkweed
He’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham.
He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day tha...more
He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day tha...more
Hardcover, 208 pages
Published
September 9th 2003
by Knopf Books for Young Readers
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This is the first Jerry Spinelli book that I have read. I bought Stargirl at the same time and after reading Milkweed I am excited to start reading Stargirl. Spinelli does well to portray the voice of a young orphan boy in Warsaw. There are a lot of reviews about this and the book "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" that say that it is unbelievable that there were children that did not know what was going on around them. I really disagree with these statements. I have taught 5th graders a...more
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Patricia
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
parents to read with their YA or teachers
Recommended to Patricia by:
my sister, Alicia
I initially read this book to determine whether it was appropriate for my 11 year-old daughter to read. Although it is considered a YA novel, any book (fiction or non-fiction) with a theme centered around the holocaust, is a novel I want to preview before allowing my child to absorb.
I was immediately drawn to the short sentence structure and quick action. From the beginning, the reader is drawn into an eight year-old orphan boy's innocent view of a world where he must steal, and be...more
I was immediately drawn to the short sentence structure and quick action. From the beginning, the reader is drawn into an eight year-old orphan boy's innocent view of a world where he must steal, and be...more
Milkweed, a novel by Jerry Spinelli, tells the tale of Jewish/Gypsy smuggler Misha Pilsudski. Through his young eyes, Misha describes his struggle to survive during the WWII Holocaust.With the help of his friends Uri, Kuba, Enos, and "little sister" Janina, Misha finds light in the dark world of the Warsaw Ghetto. The plot, though somewhat uneventful, gives the reader rich details about Jewish children during the time period. The innocent writing style sugar-coats the true horrors of t...more
Outstanding book. We've chosen this to read for the November 2008 Children's Book Club. My students wanted to read about the Holocaust and I think this will provide an interesting discussion. I may try to read them Innocenti's Rose Blanche for a comparative (sp?) point of view.
We discussed this November 12. One didn't like, one liked but thought it was sad, the other was finishing it but liked it. Don't know where the other members were. Lots of people checked the book out so...more
We discussed this November 12. One didn't like, one liked but thought it was sad, the other was finishing it but liked it. Don't know where the other members were. Lots of people checked the book out so...more
Leslie
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
history buffs, romantics
Shelves:
favorite
Author - Jerry Spinelli
This is a young adult book - maybe even for middle schoolers.
It takes place during WWII in Warsaw, Poland. A young boy is stealing food and is caught by another boy who lives with a group of children who steal food and live on the streets. This boy knows nothing about himself - not his name, not where he lives, not even his age. The author uses very simple language and sentence structure in the beginning of the book so that we are drawn into this...more
This is a young adult book - maybe even for middle schoolers.
It takes place during WWII in Warsaw, Poland. A young boy is stealing food and is caught by another boy who lives with a group of children who steal food and live on the streets. This boy knows nothing about himself - not his name, not where he lives, not even his age. The author uses very simple language and sentence structure in the beginning of the book so that we are drawn into this...more
Author: Jerry Spinelli
Title: Milkweed
Genre: historical fiction
Publication Info: Random House, New York, 2003
Recommended Age: 11 and older
Plot Summary: A pocket-picking orphan who thinks his name is “stopthief” tells of his experiences during the Holocaust. The story begins when he is about eight years old. A redheaded older boy named Uri finds Stopthief and takes him under his wing, introducing him to a whole group of young thieves. Uri gives Stopthief a new name an...more
Title: Milkweed
Genre: historical fiction
Publication Info: Random House, New York, 2003
Recommended Age: 11 and older
Plot Summary: A pocket-picking orphan who thinks his name is “stopthief” tells of his experiences during the Holocaust. The story begins when he is about eight years old. A redheaded older boy named Uri finds Stopthief and takes him under his wing, introducing him to a whole group of young thieves. Uri gives Stopthief a new name an...more
After loving "Maniac Magee" for the greater part of my life, I was enthralled to stumble upon another Spinelli work at the library. However, I was gravely disappointed by "Milkweed". The novel really isn't believable. There aren't plot holes or anything, it's actually very well pieced together...but it's about a Jew (who really doesn't know if he's a Jew) who wants to be a Nazi in 1940's Germany. He's basically a homeless boy taken in by some Jewish homeless boys. They run ar...more
An orphan is first known as “Stopthief”, then dubbed “Misha” by a new friend while running through the streets of wartime Poland. As he steals food, he is called many things: gypsy, dirty Jew, “Stop, Thief!”, while the war progresses, and Jews are bullied, shot at, and eventually crammed into the infamous Warsaw Ghetto. Misha befriends a Jewish family, and is very naive and not understanding what is happening in his world. As his friends starve, Misha crawls out of a small two-brick space to sca...more
I originally picked this book up because of the title; we're big monarch butterfly fans in my house. Well, it's about the holocaust and not butterflies, but it still interested me. I agree with another person (Patricia) who rated this book on a lot of things. I read the book in about two days and did like the story and was quite captivated by it.
I had trouble with two things. The first was where Stopthief came from. It seemed that he just materialized when he was 8. He couldn't remem...more
I had trouble with two things. The first was where Stopthief came from. It seemed that he just materialized when he was 8. He couldn't remem...more
Tragedy, historical content, and Sarcastic is the tone given by the author. This book was about events that happened during the time period of the Holocaust. I had to read this book over the summer before entering the eighth grade because we were going to learn about it in school and we needed basic knowledge of what it was. So here I am thinking I probably find a book review on it and there I finish and prepared. But as I read the first chapter that turned into the middle of the book to the en...more
This was another book of Juvenile Fiction that I listened to. It is the story of an orphaned boy, about eight years old, who knows nothing about himself and is "adopted" by a group of Jewish youth in Warsaw, since they assume he is one of them. He does not even know his name - the only name that he responds to is "Stop Thief" because that is what he has heard people shout at him as long as he can remember. Because of his total innocence and ignorance about what is happenin...more
Note: I listened to this on tape, read by Ron Rifkin (who read The Giver by Lowry) and he did a marvelous job of reading.
Misha Pilsudski doesn't really have a name--his friend and "guardian" Uri gave him a name and story so he would have something to tell people when asked. He lives in Warsaw in 1938, is a Gypsy, and his estimated age is about seven or eight. Misha is going through life without any cares, other than he feels the need to be quick and a thief, and doesn't rea...more
Misha Pilsudski doesn't really have a name--his friend and "guardian" Uri gave him a name and story so he would have something to tell people when asked. He lives in Warsaw in 1938, is a Gypsy, and his estimated age is about seven or eight. Misha is going through life without any cares, other than he feels the need to be quick and a thief, and doesn't rea...more
Historical Fiction--Jerry Spinelli powerpoint presentation
Within the first paragraph of the book I loved innocent Misha, although we don't know his name until later in the book. In fact, he didn't know his real name either. He emerges in the first paragraph not knowing where he has been or who he is. He thinks his name is "Stopthief" because that was what shopkeepers yelled at him when he stole to survive. It is unclear if he is a Jew or Gypsy, a pretty important distinction...more
Within the first paragraph of the book I loved innocent Misha, although we don't know his name until later in the book. In fact, he didn't know his real name either. He emerges in the first paragraph not knowing where he has been or who he is. He thinks his name is "Stopthief" because that was what shopkeepers yelled at him when he stole to survive. It is unclear if he is a Jew or Gypsy, a pretty important distinction...more
This book shook me to my core. I kept thinking about the boy's parents, what happened to them that their little 8 year-old boy had to fend for himself on the streets in Warsaw? When I was 8-10, I didn't have a clue about world events or politics. At the end of the book, he says that during the first years of his life that he could remember, he had uttered less than 2,000 words. He had no recollection of his name, his parents, or his prior circumstances. The only thing he had was a small yellow s...more
Emiel
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who get involved by the story`s
milkweed by jerry spinelli
this book mainly talks about a boy who is supose to live under a bridge. The city is very ridge. But the boy always tries to get a better life. One day his dream came out and he has got a home. When he got in the new family he sees the world has changed a lot and he doesn`t really feel welcome. but he can`t leaf because he has teh best days of his life.
If I want to be friend with someone in the story I will take Uri. Uri is a very smart boy and ...more
this book mainly talks about a boy who is supose to live under a bridge. The city is very ridge. But the boy always tries to get a better life. One day his dream came out and he has got a home. When he got in the new family he sees the world has changed a lot and he doesn`t really feel welcome. but he can`t leaf because he has teh best days of his life.
If I want to be friend with someone in the story I will take Uri. Uri is a very smart boy and ...more
Spoiler Alert
This book is a very good book because it centers around the holocaust and talk about a young orphan boy who lives in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland. He has no home, no friends, and doesn’t even have a name. He is called many things but most are unlikey a good name. He has to survive on moldy bread, and must live long enough to escape the Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland to find his way to America.
This a a fictional book, This book is very interesting because every paragrap...more
This book is a very good book because it centers around the holocaust and talk about a young orphan boy who lives in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland. He has no home, no friends, and doesn’t even have a name. He is called many things but most are unlikey a good name. He has to survive on moldy bread, and must live long enough to escape the Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland to find his way to America.
This a a fictional book, This book is very interesting because every paragrap...more
He's running. That is the first thing he remembers. He doesn't remember why he is running or where he is running to, all he knows is running. He has no name, no home and no family. He is a gypsy, a thief, but still a boy. A boy who doesn't know who or what he is until his friend, Uri, tells him. He is told his name is Misha Pilsudski. He is a gypsy. He is not to look guilty.
This story is about a young boy that finds himself in a small town that is under the Nazi power. He has no famil...more
This story is about a young boy that finds himself in a small town that is under the Nazi power. He has no famil...more
This is the first Jerry Spinelli book I have read and was pleasently suprised at how good it was. I had heard of the Author previously to buying Milkweed but knew nothing about his books at all.
I brought this book because I was intregued by the cover and title. As soon as I saw it on the shelf I thought "Thats a book I must own and read." (I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but I did.)
I had no idea what the book was about. So once I got home I read the b...more
I brought this book because I was intregued by the cover and title. As soon as I saw it on the shelf I thought "Thats a book I must own and read." (I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but I did.)
I had no idea what the book was about. So once I got home I read the b...more
Milkweed is Jerry Spinelli’s first historical novel and he has produced a work that, in its simplicity, sent chills through me as I read. It is a novel about life in the Warsaw Ghetto through the eyes of a young boy, around 8 years old, who has no real identity and who does not possess any real social skills or knowledge of the world around him. Lacking these frames of reference, the boy misunderstands or draws incorrect conclusions about what he sees going on. He recalls nothing about his past,...more
Milkweed does what every good book should do: it piqued my interest from the very start and kept it right to the very last paragraph of the final chapter; I didn’t skim or skip a thing. It contained appealing characters most of whom were reasonably well fleshed out and believable, its story was plausible and well-paced (although the very ending was a bit quick for some readers’ tastes) and it was told in a style that did more than simply relate what happened to whom, when and how.
I hav...more
I hav...more
Hmm, I don't know. I loved MOST of the book. I grew up trying to learn all I could about war history, so the experiences described in Milkweed were nothing I hadn't read about or seen on film before, but the story of life in Nazi-occupied Europe through the eyes of a child, who at first can't even understand what's going on, packs quite an emotional wallop. Spinelli's prose in this one contains little of the eloquent fluidity I remember so well from Stargirl; the style is choppier, more minimali...more
One of the most haunting experiences of my adult life, right up there with seeing Sophie's Choice and nearly losing my daughter at birth, reading this novel has shaken me to my comfortable, American suburban core. Spinelli depicts several seasons of a young boy's life in the Warsaw Ghetto with an authenticity in the first person that lends both immediacy and innocence to the narrative.
Misha captures the heart and defies the imagination with the horrors he witnesses as the Jackboots invade ...more
Misha captures the heart and defies the imagination with the horrors he witnesses as the Jackboots invade ...more
This I would probably give a 3 1/2 if I could. I liked the book, and keep thinking about the characters, their situations, and being a little haunted by it all, but I didn't fall in love with it. The main character is very interesting since he doesn't really know anything about himself except for a very few vague memories, doesn't even have a name, since it seems like he was left to fend for himself at a young age. He's taken under the wing of an older orphan boy in Warsaw, and although he's alr...more
I love both Maniac Magee and Stargirl, but this book left me cold. I found it unbelievable. I didn't really care about the characters. Spinelli is usually good to pull me into the story, but this story just made me feel yucky. I didn't get the whole "Candy man" in the Ghetto. Where did he come from. In every story I've ever read about the Holocaust the children (and adults) are always afraid of the soldiers. I found the idea of the Misha and Janina taunting the Mint man annoying. It wo...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Milkweed is a story of the Holocaust through the eyes of an illiterate orphan stealing and running to survive in Warsaw, Poland as the Nazis systematically eliminate Jews from that city.
The lesson is that no vocabulary can encompass the barbarity of the Holocaust. The child accepts whatever name, whatever story, the people around him affix to him. He claims it and makes it his own without any understanding of the moral and social implications of those names and stories. Another lesso...more
The lesson is that no vocabulary can encompass the barbarity of the Holocaust. The child accepts whatever name, whatever story, the people around him affix to him. He claims it and makes it his own without any understanding of the moral and social implications of those names and stories. Another lesso...more
This is the third book I've read by this author, the first two included Wringer, a Newbery trophy award winner, and Maniac Mcgee, a Newbery medal winner. This is by far the most powerful of those I've read.
Set in the historical time frame of Nazi occupation of Poland, Misha is a gypsy orphan who, with a band of waifs, roams the streets of Warsaw stealing food and sleeping wherever he can lay his head. He is a simple, naive boy who is called stupid and silly by Uri, another orphan who...more
Set in the historical time frame of Nazi occupation of Poland, Misha is a gypsy orphan who, with a band of waifs, roams the streets of Warsaw stealing food and sleeping wherever he can lay his head. He is a simple, naive boy who is called stupid and silly by Uri, another orphan who...more
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli is about a young boy living on the streets of Warsaw, Poland during WWII and has no recollection of his past at all he knows that people call him "stopthief." While stealing food from a baker he runs into another orphan named Uri. Uri takes him back to his hideout in a horse stable where several other children are hiding. Uri asks "Stopthief" his name, since he doesn't know Uri gives him the name "Misha." On one adventure he sneaks into th...more
I'm teaching Spinelli's amazing novel "Stargirl" to my literature class, so when one of my other students told me I had to read this book, which he is reading in HIS literature class, I said I would. I look forward to discussing it with him, as I honestly didn't think the world of it. It's about a young orphan named Misha who finds himself in the midst of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. I think the major problem for me is that, after studying the Holocaust in college and reading...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
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When Jerry Spinelli was a kid, he wanted to grow up to be either a cowboy or a baseball player. Lucky for us he became a writer instead.
He grew up in rural Pennsylvania and went to college at Gettysburg College and Johns Hopkins University. He has published more than 25 books and has six children and 16 grandchildren.
Jerry Spinelli began writing when he was 16 — not much older t...more
More about Jerry Spinelli...
He grew up in rural Pennsylvania and went to college at Gettysburg College and Johns Hopkins University. He has published more than 25 books and has six children and 16 grandchildren.
Jerry Spinelli began writing when he was 16 — not much older t...more
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2 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“When you own nothing, it's easy to let things go.”
—
49 people liked it
“Who are you?'
I didn't understand the question.
I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?'
I gave him my name. 'Stopthief.”
—
8 people liked it
More quotes…
I didn't understand the question.
I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?'
I gave him my name. 'Stopthief.”
