Milkweed review
By Maggie Mason
Sherman, New York
A wondrous tale that shows us a sad time in history, Jerry Spinelli’s Milkweed changed my outlook on the Holocaust. It revealed horrific scenes that were common on the streets of Warsaw. But it also had a character, named Misha, who could always find some sort of beauty somewhere in the middle of the tragedies he faced every day. He would also make me smile a little along the way. First, before I read this book, I had a decent knowledge of the Holocaust and events, plus a feeling of hate and sorrow toward it. I knew of the ghettos, the starving people, the forced labor, and the concentration camps. But Milkweed went further than most stories. I have only seen one movie (The Pianist) that went as deep as Milkweed went, expressing the true feelings and the true horrors behind the Holocaust.
Then, I read Milkweed. Milkweed deepened my thoughts and opinions on the Holocaust. It made me feel as if I was experiencing it all myself: my belly growling from hunger, the cold numbing my fingers and nipping at my feet. Not only that, but it broadened my overall knowledge on the Holocaust. The man who was scrubbing the sidewalk with his beard, the burning cow, even the Sunday walks that “jackboots” took with their girlfriends in the ghetto, all made me more aware of what Holocaust victims faced in that time.
And then the book, at times, made me feel…happy. I loved all the times that Misha found the beauty, especially the merry-go-round. Of course, I felt happy when his daughter approached him in the supermarket and while he watched his granddaughter do headstands. But of all the beauties he found, my favorite is when Misha and Janina found the Milkweed in the alley. It was what brought this whole story together, in the feeling it brings to Misha and Janina and the reader. It was a symbol of hope and light to Misha and Janina in the dark place that they were in because it rose to the sky like an angel. “That’s my angel,” Janina had told Misha.
This book took everything that we didn’t know and brought it into the light for us to understand exactly what happened, and for us to understand the feelings that we should feel toward this time in history. It has such wonderful characters and vivid scenes that can teach anyone about the Holocaust and its real meaning of the Jews and gypsies and Poles. This book took my own feelings even further and taught me things I never knew. It also made me smile a little along the way. Milkweed both confirmed and changed my feelings on the Holocaust and all for the better.