Milkweed

Milkweed
By Jerry Spinelli
Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. 208 p. Young Adult Fiction

He didn’t even know his own name. It was the cries of “Stop, Thief!” that constantly rang in his ears as he was running away that caused him to offer this up as a possible moniker when questioned roughly by the other street boys. But because he is tiny and fast (and knows how to steal a good strawberry bobka when he sees one) the boys welcome him into their happy gang of ragtag thievery and inform him that he must be a gypsy, as he is not a Jew. Thus he is christened Mischa, and not being a Jew quickly becomes very important in Warsaw, Poland as WWII approaches. But Mischa soon finds that even gypsies are a mysterious target and the increasing violence against both these demoralized communities eventually forces them into the infamous Warsaw ghetto.

Mischa, the tiny Gypsy, is an amazingly endearing and thoroughly naïve narrator and he approaches the war with a genuine surprise that captures both the heart and tears of the reader. As Mischa joyfully continues his food scavenging during the ghetto confinement, traveling back and forth through a two-brick opening in the wall, he befriends many a needy Jew and encounters many disturbing scenarios. He acquires numerous names from his ramshackle “family” members but through the devastation continues to prove that even those with nothing can sometimes give the most.

DAP