Milkweed

Milkweed
Jerry Spinelli
KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS

Misha is a runaway Gypsy/Jew in Warsaw, Poland, who finds himself right in the middle of WWII and the extermination of the Jews. Misha gets taken in by a Jew, who has uncharacteristically red hair, named Uri. Uri protects Misha as best he can, until Misha gets taken to the Warsaw ghetto where the Jews in the city were forced to live until their deportation to internment camps. The innocence and curiosity of the little boy become more defined as he strives to keep himself, and his new found friends, alive.

WARNING: As any book about the Holocaust, it is not for the faint of heart.

Personal opinion:

Despite the sadness and desperation of this story in the history of the extermination of the Jews, I really liked this book. I thought Spinelli did an amazing job of portraying what would really be going through a young person's mind during all the chaos at the time. He also throws in main characters that are hard to like, but so realistic that you understand and like them anyway. The story was told from a perspective that I have never read before and showed me that people who weren't necessarily tortured or forced to live in internment camps still came out of the experience changed and broken.