Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli is a touching, emotional book that touches high schoolers. Misha Pulsudski is an orphan who has a sort of big brother who looks out for him and "tells him about his family". Misha and Uri live in Warsaw and survive by stealing and sleeping where ever they can find an abandoned building. They spend quite a bit of time with a larger group of orphans, but that proves to not always be a great for the boys.
Misha is a gypsy who eventually decides he's going to pretend to be Jewish and moves into the Ghetto with his friend Janina's family. While living with this family he teaches Janina to steal and they sneak out of the Ghetto wall together every night. This books gives readers an up close experience with what it would have been like to live in the Ghetto and how hard it was to survive.
This book is dear to my heart, ever since I remember picking it up in high school at scholastic book fair having no clue what to expect from it. I ended up loving this book and wanted to know more as the story progressed.
ReplyDeleteThis book is a wonderful way to get kids to read about history, since the book is mysterious in nature. Misha is stuck with his own identity crisis, and ends up choosing a life that leads to a sad ending. Everyone that he meets ends up in a bad situation, when he is just trying to survive as a beggar, orphan, and robber on the streets.
I would recommend this book to anyone. It is a fantastic story!!!