Book Review: Milkweed, a novel by Jerry Spinelli (2003)

The cover of  Milkweed, a novel by Jerry Spinelli, 2003.

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli might seem to have an unlikely plot for a young adult novel. It is set in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The narrator is a young Gypsy (Roma) boy who thinks his name is “Stopthief,” since that is what people yell after him. Eventually his friend Uri gives him the name of Misha.  

Misha is an orphan and doesn’t remember much about his family. He lives with other orphan boys, who are all Jewish, and they steal whatever they need to survive. At the beginning of the novel, World War II has begun, but the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw has not been established yet.  

Misha is ignorant of the political situation brewing around him, and he swings from admiring the Nazis, whom he calls Jackboots, to wanting to be Jewish, and eventually he voluntarily enters the ghetto. Misha befriends a Jewish girl named Janina, and once he finds a place where he can sneak under the ghetto wall, his thievery of food helps her family survive.  

The novel succeeds in large part because of Spinelli’s ability to channel Misha’s voice. Every new experience stirs wonder in Misha, and Spinelli communicates this very well. Although the reader knows what the terrible fate of the Warsaw Ghetto will be, Misha has no idea. The mounting tension and dread are supplied not by the narrative itself, but by the reader’s own engagement with the text.  

Milkweed is a beautiful and haunting novel about a sad and difficult subject. Spinelli ably conjures up a bleak world where the most pressing concern is where your next meal is coming from.