Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

Spinelli, Jerry. 2003. Milkweed. Random House, Inc. ISBN 9780375813740. $15.99. Hardcover.

Awards:
*ALA Best Books for Young Adults-2004
*Carolyn W. Field Award-2004
*Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List-2004
*Golden Kite Award for Fiction-2004

Annotation:
Misha is a homeless child roaming the streets of Warsaw, stealing food in order to survive. When the Nazis arrive in Poland, Misha struggles to survive under the new rulers who attempt to destroy everyone that is not just like them.

Book Talk:
Orphaned for as long as he can remember, and living on the streets of Warsaw, Poland life is a constant battle for survival for eight year old Misha. When the Nazis invade Poland, life for the street children of Warsaw becomes even more difficult. As life lurches on under the Nazis, a strange new order begins to take shape. The Jewish people are herded up and sent to live in the ghetto – a small, walled off neighborhood where food, clothing, jobs and housing are short. Misha and the other street boys soon find themselves herded into the ghetto where they have even less food than they did before.

One day, after Misha finds himself so hungry he is eating rats, he decides to find a solution to the problem:

“The next day I began walking along the wall. Until then, I had not thought much about the other side. Now I thought: There’s food over there. More than rats. The gates in the wall were guarded by Jackboots and Flops.

The wall was much too high to climb over, and even if I could get to the top, there was a thicket of barbed wire and broken glass. All that day I walked and looked, walked and looked. At last I saw something. It was not far from the uniform factory. There was a break in the bricks. It was low enough for me to reach. It was two bricks wide. I didn’t know it then, but it was a drain hole of some sort. It would never occur to them that anyone could squeeze through a space two bricks wide.

I left and came back after dark. I was through the hold in a second. I stood on the other side.”
(pg. 87)

Can Misha outwit, outlast, and outplay the Nazis? Find out in Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli.

Author Website: www.jerryspinelli.com