Milkweed FROM THE PUBLISHER
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 that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.
Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable -- Nazi-occupied Warsaw of World War II -- and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan.
Author Biography: Jerry Spinelli has won the most prestigious awards in the industry, including the Newbery Medal for Maniac Magee and a Newbery Honor Award for Wringer.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Conveying a sometimes-astonishing na vet in light of the brutality seen through the eyes of an orphan boy, Rifkin breathes emotion into Spinelli's novel, which is set in Poland during the Holocaust. In 1939 Warsaw, a runty, ragged street thief who doesn't even know his name or if he ever had a family finds himself taken under the wing of a sharp, slightly older boy named Uri. The younger boy, now called Misha, learns a new, even more wretched way of life under Nazi occupation. He witnesses murder, torture and hatred firsthand, as taken out on the Jews by the cruel soldiers he knows as Jackboots. He further hones his scrappy survival skills, becomes part of a Jewish family in the ghetto and, miraculously, continues to muster hope as the months and years pass. Via Rifkin's cool yet compelling delivery, listeners discover-right along with an always wide-eyed Misha-some of the horrors that many innocent people suffered during this dark era of history. Though some listeners may be puzzled by Misha's detached air and consistent lack of awareness, Rifkin succeeds in making the audio experience an ultimately enlightening one. Ages 10-up. (Sept. 2003) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Children's Literature - Susie Wilde
Newbery-winning author Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed is different than any other books. Its success is achieved primarily through the main character whom Spinelli has described as "a little kid with a big heart...who finds himself trapped in a walled-in nightmare." At the beginning of the book, this young boy has no background, no name, and only one memory. "I am running. That's the first thing I remember. Running...Someone is chasing me. "Stop! Thief!" The boy refers to himself as "Stopthief" when he meets a bunch of homeless boys on the streets of pre-Nazi Warsaw. Uri, the leader of the group, gives him the name Misha Pilsudski and an invented background. When Misha describes the arrival of the Nazis, we begin to see how this character with no real history sees in a way that is strange, dispassionate, and chillingly beautiful. "They were magnificent. There were men attached to them, but it was as if the boots were wearing the men.... A thousand of them swinging up as one, falling like the footstep of a single, thousand-footed giant." Spinelli's brilliant perspective continues as Misha, searches for a home and follows a wealthy beautiful young Jew, Janina Milgrom, into the Warsaw Ghetto. Now Misha is part of a parade that was "different from the grand parade of the Jackboots! The thump of a thousand Jackboots was now the shuffle of ragged shoes; instead of the roar of tanks, the crickety click of cart wheels." Twice more Misha describes parades as Janus Korczak's orphans are led out of the ghetto singing and an endless parade seen in the yellow light of trains bound for the extermination camps. There is a beauty and a sensory strength that forms a contrast with the stark ugliness we knowMisha faces. Spinelli's genius is that he stays firmly rooted in his viewpoint character who is uncomprehending, innocent and impersonally recounts the horrors he sees. 2003, Knopf, Ages 11 up.
VOYA - Angelina Benedetti
When readers first meet the orphan narrator, he is running. "Stop!" and Thief!" are words so familiar to him that he takes them as his name. Stopthief is one of a band of boys living on the streets and in the stables of Warsaw before the Nazi occupation. This devastating narrative follows his journey from the streets into the Ghetto and through the end of the war. Stopthief is renamed Misha by Uri, the leader of the orphan band, and told that he is a Russian gypsy, not a Jew. Misha is awestruck by the "Jackboots" who take over the city. After he is herded into the Jewish Ghetto, he steals food for his adopted family and the local orphanage. As conditions in the ghetto worsen, his ability to smuggle in and out of its walls turns him from thief to savior. Spinelli's works features more than one irrepressible hero who rises above the social confines of his or her day. In placing such a character in one of history's darkest hours, he challenges readers to see the Holocaust anew, to experience it in the moment. Misha is both insider and outsider, without history and without knowledge, and through his eyes the reader knows the disorientation, the confusion, and the mounting horror of a people who, unlike the modern reader, do not know what is to come. It is too simple to call him an archetype. His daring, part courage and part naﾽvetﾽ, comes at a cost, and only in the book's final chapters does one come to understand the price of his dissociation. Neither oppressor or oppressed, he is a tragic figure, ultimately alone despite his loyalty to Uri and to his adopted sister Janina. Spinelli creates a masterful achievement, a war story to be put alongside J. G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun and aliterary accompaniment to Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2003, Knopf, 208p., Ages 12 to 18.
Alan Review
Little Misha is known by many names throughout his life, names both given him by his adopted people and his cruel oppressors. Naturally searching for identity and acceptance, he gets swept up in humanity's greatest atrocity. Misha is an uneducated orphan in Warsaw, Poland. Adopted by smugglers and Jews, he learns to use his speed, wits, and small size to survive. He and his friends steal from the fortunate to keep alive, and through this, they create hope for themselves by embracing adventure, challenge, and charity. The story is told from Misha's naive point of view, making the story a perfect introduction to the events of the Holocaust for young adults. When the Jews begin to be subjected to terrible things, Misha doesn't understand. He sees the world with a child's eyes and has no way to process what is happening to him. Milkweed is heartbreaking, not only for its honest look at an abhorrent series of events, but also for its realistic portrayal of the toll these events take on a boy, his adopted family, and his misfit friends. The book successfully captures these people in all their frail humanity, their joy and follies, their triumphs and tragedies. 2003, Alfred A. Knopf, 224 pp. Ages young adult. Reviewer: Steve Rasmussen
School Library Journal
Gr 5 Up-In Warsaw in 1939, a boy wanders the streets and survives by stealing what food he can. He knows nothing of his background: Is he a Jew? A Gypsy? Was he ever called something other than Stopthief? Befriended by a band of orphaned Jewish boys, he begins to share their sleeping quarters. He understands very little of what is happening. When the Nazi "Jackboots" march into the town, he greets them happily, admires their shiny boots and tanks, and hopes he can join their ranks someday. He eventually adopts a name, Misha, and a family, that of his friend Janina Milgrom, a girl he meets while stealing food in her comfortable neighborhood. When the Milgroms are forced to move into the newly created ghetto, Misha cheerfully accompanies them. There, he is one of the few small enough to slip through holes in the wall to smuggle in food. By the time trains come to take the ghetto's residents away, Misha realizes what many adults do not-that the passengers won't be going to the resettlement villages at the journey's end. Reading this unusual, fresh view of the Holocaust as seen through the eyes of a child who struggles to understand the world around him is like viewing a poignant collage of Misha's impressions. He shares certain qualities with Spinelli's Maniac Magee, especially his intense loyalty to those he cares about and his hopeful, resilient spirit. This historical novel can be appreciated both by readers with previous knowledge of the Holocaust and by those who share Misha's innocence and will discover the horrors of this period in history along with him.-Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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