Milkweed

Milkweed

Jerry Spinelli

Pages: 208

            There are Jackboots marching down the road lined with bombed out buildings, followed by tanks while one boy thinks it is a wonderful parade. In Milkweed  by Jerry Spinelli, that boys name is Misha, an orphan and gypsy, who meets a little girl named Janina and becomes good friends with her. When every Jew and gypsy moves to the Warsaw ghetto, he steals food for her family and himself when Janina starts, too. When the trains come to the ghetto to take the Jews to work camps, Janina gets lost in the crowd and goes to the work camp, leaving him alone. Misha is very arrogant at the beginning when he wants to be a Jackboot and part of that “wonderful parade.” If I were Misha, I would have taken Janina very far away, without her knowing, so she couldn’t go to the trains and to the work camp.