Milkweed #3 Blog

I have just started the book, Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli and I’m  kind of disturbed. You have orphans running around the slums but the things they do for food are incredible. Also, the things they consider themselves since they are Jewish. One part of the book said, “He fell to his knees and scrabbled in the straw near the horse flop. He found something. He held it out to me. It was a small brown insect. “This is a Jew…” “A Jew is and animal.” All of this was directed to one kid named Misha Pilsudski who is the main character. He is an orphan who can’t even remember the simplest detail. The worst thing is that he can’t even remember his name. Misha Pilsudski was given to him by the orphan’s leader named Uri. Uri warned Misha about the realities of life and how awful people can be, especially the Jackboots otherwise known as the Nazis. I am assuming that this book takes place in a ghetto but you can never be sure due to the moving of the characters, in order to avoid the Jackboots. Later in the book the Jews were being moved to a ghetto and that is what is weird. The disasters in the town they are living matched up with what a ghetto would look like but, they are allowed to do a lot of things. Wherever they are in the world Nazis have take over the space and that is a big problem. Since Misha does not know where he is from he doesn’t know his religion. He was left with a yellow stone around his neck. Very majestic! Due to the stone Uri believes that he is a gypsy. That is a problem because in the story I learned that there wasn’t anything Nazis hated more than gypsies. That puts him in an even deeper ditch. Since he has to avoid the Jackboots and he can’t go to school he is not educated. Everywhere he goes he is telling everybody he is a gypsy. That has cost him abuse from the Nazis who have beaten him and shot of his earlobe. Once he is educated he may do well in life. But, if he continues his life this way he may end his life a lot shorter than he had planned.