Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

Milkweed, authored by Jerry Spinelli, is the first-person narrative of a young, orphaned Gypsy boy in Warsaw, Poland, during World War II. First calling himself “Stoptheif” and on his own in the streets of Warsaw stealing bread from rich ladies with fox-fur stoles the boy is soon adopted by a band of orphans headed by a red-headed Jew named Uri. Uri takes “Stoptheif” under his wing and teaches him how to survive in the treacherous times they find themselves in and renames the boy “Misha”. Time passes and Misha and the other orphans, minus Uri, are moved into the Jewish ghetto. With his protector gone, Misha soon earns his place in another family, the Milgroms, by using his “Stoptheif” skills to escape the ghetto in the night and forage for food in war-torn Warsaw.

Milkweed is unique in the historical Young Adult novel genre in that the history is hidden behind the story. The timeline of Milkweed is fluid and references to the specific facts of World War II are few and far between. Instead it is the personal affect on Misha— his run-ins with the Flops, his fright when he cannot squeeze back through the wall and into the ghetto after a night of ransacking the rich homes of Warsaw for rotten food, his frustration with his adopted sister Janina Milgrom who follows in his every footstep, even becoming a smuggler like her brother—that tell the true story of the suffering in Warsaw, Poland during World War II.