Milkweed

Genre: Historical Fiction

Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed . New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

[Book cover credit: www.alibris.com]

When he was asked what his name was he said, “Stoptheif”, that is what the Jackboots (Nazi soldiers) call him. He is a young orphan boy that is confused by everything going on around him in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.

What was the Holocaust like from a young boy’s perspective? Many have read the Diary of Anne Frank and Number the Stars. Milkweed takes a look at this time period from a young orphaned boy’s perspective. How he and a group of boys become a gang or a type of family and how they survive working together. What can you survive with help from your friends?

Grade 5 and Up-

2003 Golden Kite Award