50 Fun Facts About Milkweed (Novel)

Which Polish city, site of the largest Nazi ghetto of World War II, is the setting of Milkweed?

Warsaw is where the nameless orphan is stealing food when German troops invade in 1939. The following autumn the city's Jewish residents are forced into a crowded ghetto.

Which Newbery Medal-winning American author wrote Milkweed, a novel about an orphan in a ghetto?

Jerry Spinelli hesitated to write about the Holocaust, feeling unqualified because he had no personal connection to it. Once he went ahead, survivors' personal accounts gave him insight.

In Milkweed, what nickname do the street orphans give the Nazi soldiers whom Misha at first admires?

Jackboots are the marching boots the German soldiers wear, and Misha is so dazzled by them that he wants to become a soldier himself.

At the start of Milkweed, which shouted word does the nameless orphan boy believe is his own name?

Stopthief is how he identifies himself because he steals food to survive. An older street boy soon gives him a proper name and an invented past.

Which real Polish doctor, who ran a Jewish orphanage, appears as a character in Milkweed?

Janusz Korczak repeatedly turned down offers of shelter outside the ghetto, saying he could not abandon his children. In the novel, Misha smuggles food to the doctor's orphans.

The milkweed plant that gives the novel Milkweed its title is the larval food of which insect?

Monarch butterfly caterpillars feed on milkweed leaves, so gardeners plant it to help the dwindling species. In the novel, one plant somehow grows in the barren ghetto.

During World War II, Americans collected the silky floss of the milkweed plant to fill what?

Life jackets were normally stuffed with kapok, but Japan's control of Java cut off the supply, so American schoolchildren were asked to gather milkweed pods as a buoyant substitute.

In Milkweed, which part of Misha's body is shot off when he is caught outside after the curfew?

His earlobe is clipped by a bullet when he ignores the new curfew, and the misshapen ear later helps mark him as an outsider in America.

Which Nazi leader's drive through the ghetto in Milkweed ends Misha's wish to become a soldier?

Heinrich Himmler strikes Misha as an ugly, unresponsive man rather than a grand figure. Once Misha is sure of who he saw, he decides he no longer wants to join the soldiers.

The author of Milkweed won the 1991 Newbery Medal for which novel about an orphan seeking a home?

Maniac Magee follows an orphan boy who becomes a local legend in the fictional town of Two Mills, in a story that explores racism and inequality.

In Milkweed, what colour is the hair of the older street thief who names and protects Misha?

Red hair, along with a familiar voice, is how Misha recognises the uniformed Nazi who attacks him during the deportations as his old protector.

Which surname, shared with a famous Polish marshal, is Misha given in Milkweed?

Pilsudski is also the surname of Józef Piłsudski, Poland's first Marshal and Chief of State. Misha gratefully adopts the name to fill the blank where his past should be.

In the false history invented for Misha in Milkweed, in which country was he born?

Russia is where the made-up tale places his birth, into a large, old Roma family that bombs later tear apart. Misha believes every word.

In the invented past Misha is given in Milkweed, his family lives by horse trading and what else?

Fortune telling is his mother's gift in the tale, which has the family roaming the countryside in a wagon caravan.

What does a panicked Misha grab and run off with at Janina's birthday party in Milkweed?

The cake seems to be on fire to Misha, who has never seen birthday candles. Once he learns the truth, he steals a replacement from one of the best bakeries in town and leaves it on her doorstep.

In Milkweed, what is Misha stealing from a backyard garden when he first meets Janina?

A tomato from her family's backyard starts the friendship, and Misha soon begins stealing extra loaves of bread to leave for her family.

In Milkweed, what does Misha use to slip out of the ghetto at night and steal food?

A gap in the wall just two bricks wide is enough for the tiny boy to squeeze through each night. He brings the food back for Janina's family and the ghetto's orphans.

In Milkweed, what does Janina imagine the fluffy milkweed seeds drifting over the ghetto to be?

Angels are what the floating seeds suggest to Janina, who claims one as her own. Reviewers single out the plant as one of the novel's symbols of hope.

Which one-armed boy from Misha's orphan gang in Milkweed is hanged by the Nazis for smuggling?

Olek lost his other arm when he was pushed in front of a train. His hanging does not stop the other children from smuggling, because they are too hungry to give it up.

In Milkweed, what does the orphan Big Henryk wear on his feet instead of shoes?

Bank coin bags serve as his footwear for most of the story. After the silent boy Jon dies in the first ghetto winter, Big Henryk starts wearing Jon's shoes.

In Milkweed, what does the cruel, child-hating ghetto guard Buffo always smell of?

Mint clings to Buffo so strongly that the ghetto's children describe his victims as having smelled it. When Misha finds him after the war, the once-feared guard just shuffles away.

In Milkweed, Janina's Uncle Shepsel tries to stop being treated as a Jew by converting to what?

Lutheranism is his hoped-for way out, since Uncle Shepsel cares mostly about his own wellbeing. He also resents Misha's place in the household.

In Milkweed, what was the profession of Janina's father before restrictions on Jews ended his work?

Pharmacist is the trade he must give up, yet he meets the ghetto with quiet dignity and comes to count Misha as part of the family.

Which surname does Misha take in Milkweed once Janina's father accepts him as part of the family?

Milgrom replaces the surname his street guardian invented, after Misha survives hours of standing at attention in the snow beside the family.

Which Jewish festival does Janina's father invite Misha to celebrate in the ghetto in Milkweed?

Hanukkah is the family's answer to despair, because Janina's father insists that Jewish people must never forget how to be happy.

In Milkweed, what does Misha search the entire city for to cheer up a despondent Janina?

An egg is his gift to her at a time when food is growing scarcer and seven more people have crowded into the family's tiny room.

Besides food, what does Misha steal in Milkweed to help the orphans' home run by a kindly doctor?

Coal for the orphanage is something Misha takes after copying the older boy who looks after him. Later he smuggles food into the ghetto for the same children.

During the deportations in Milkweed, Misha last sees a Nazi soldier toss Janina into which vehicle?

A boxcar is where she lands, tossed through the air by a soldier, and Misha thinks she looks as graceful as a milkweed seed in flight.

In Milkweed, which old friend in Nazi uniform shoots Misha during the deportations to save him?

Uri wounds Misha so that he is left behind when the transports depart. Only after the war does Misha grasp that the shot was meant to spare him from death in a concentration camp.

After the ghetto is emptied in Milkweed, where is Misha held and made to work for three years?

On a farm in the Polish countryside, Misha sleeps in the barn and is tied to a post at night so he cannot leave. By the time he gets away, the war is over.

In Milkweed, who finally unties Misha after three years of captivity and tells him to run?

His captor's wife, Elzbieta, is kinder than the husband who ties Misha up at night: she feeds the boy, tends his wound and, in the end, sends him off with a loaf of bread.

After the war in Milkweed, what does Misha take off and leave on a sidewalk in the ruined ghetto?

His armband is left lying in the rubble, and Misha heads back to the countryside, where he hauls a little cart of stolen goods to sell.

In Milkweed, what new first name does an immigration officer give Misha when he reaches America?

Jack is one more identity handed to Misha by someone else, just as an older street boy once named him. He goes on to tell his war stories under it for decades.

What job does Misha struggle at in America in Milkweed, held back by his accent and small size?

Salesman is a role he fails at, and in his desperation to sell he starts pouring out stories about the war instead.

In Milkweed, which woman stops to listen to Misha's street-corner stories and goes on to marry him?

Vivian brings him food and takes him on dates before proposing marriage herself. She leaves after a few months, worn down by his nightmares and petty theft.

In which American city does Misha spend decades telling his story on street corners in Milkweed?

Philadelphia is where a passing woman at last tells him he has been heard and that it is over, and he never takes to a street corner again.

In Milkweed, where is the elderly Misha working when his long-lost daughter walks in and finds him?

A grocery store is where he is stocking shelves when a young woman introduces herself as the child he never met. She had spent years searching for him.

What is the name of the daughter who tracks Misha down after years of searching in Milkweed?

Katherine is in her twenties when she finds him, having been born after her mother walked out on the marriage. She invites him to live with her and her own little girl.

At the end of Milkweed, what does Misha's daughter ask him to choose for his granddaughter Wendy?

Her middle name had been left blank until Misha could be found, and he fills it at once with Janina, in memory of the girl he came to call his sister.

What affectionate nickname does Misha's granddaughter Wendy call him at the end of Milkweed?

Poppynoodle is the last of his many names and the one he embraces, because her happy voice finally silences the marching soldiers in his mind.

In Milkweed, where is the gang of street orphans sleeping when Misha is first brought to meet them?

A stable is the gang's shelter, and there the boys tease the newcomer about his small size and how little he seems to know of the world.

In Milkweed, which member of Janina's family dies of a long illness during a winter in the ghetto?

Her mother had been sickly and bitter about the ghetto, and objected to Misha spending time with her daughter.

Once the deportations begin in Milkweed, what does Janina's father urge Misha to do with her?

To flee the city is his quiet plea, because he has known about the children's nightly smuggling all along and thinks they are safer outside. Janina refuses to abandon her family.

Which children's book prize, judged by a jury of peers, did Milkweed win for fiction in 2004?

The Golden Kite Award is given by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and its medallion shows a child flying a kite.

The real doctor portrayed in Milkweed was murdered along with his orphans at which Nazi death camp?

Treblinka is where the whole orphanage was sent during the 1942 deportations. By some accounts he turned down a German officer's offer to help him escape.

Which 1943 event in the real ghetto depicted in Milkweed briefly halted the Nazi deportations?

An armed uprising by the ghetto's remaining Jews temporarily stopped the transports, and the Germans demolished the district in May 1943. Misha later returns to find only rubble.

Which other novel by the author of Milkweed became a 2020 Disney+ film starring Grace VanderWaal?

Stargirl follows a quirky, homeschooled girl who arrives at an Arizona high school, and it was first published three years before Milkweed.

In Milkweed, what do ghetto residents call the Jewish guards, such as Buffo, who police them?

Flops are Jewish guards working inside the ghetto, and Misha considers the infamous Buffo, who hates children, the worst of them.

Early in Milkweed, Nazi soldiers humiliate Jewish men by forcing them to wash the street with what?

Their beards are what they must scrub with, yet naive Misha fails to grasp the cruelty and still believes the soldiers like him.

In Milkweed, at which hotel used by Nazi soldiers does Misha find his missing protector working?

The Blue Camel is where the soldiers lodge, and the older boy makes a confused Misha promise never to use his real name there.