Milkweed (Novel)
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50 free Milkweed (Novel) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Milkweed is a young adult historical novel, first published in 2003, about a small boy with no name, no family and no past who survives by stealing food in a Polish city under Nazi occupation. Seen through his eyes, the Holocaust is confusing before it is terrifying, which is one reason the book is so widely taught in schools. This quiz follows the story from the streets to the ghetto and on to its quiet ending decades later. Questions cover the boy's shifting identities, the gang of orphans, the family that takes him in, the guards and soldiers he fears and admires, and the meaning of the plant in the title. A few go beyond the plot to the author, the prizes, and the real people and events the novel draws on. It works as a reading check for students, a review before a class test, or a challenge for anyone who has just finished the book. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Polish city, site of the largest Nazi ghetto of World War II, is the setting of Milkweed?
Warsaw
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.
Q 02Which Newbery Medal-winning American author wrote Milkweed, a novel about an orphan in a ghetto?
Jerry Spinelli
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.
Q 03In Milkweed, what nickname do the street orphans give the Nazi soldiers whom Misha at first admires?
Jackboots
Jackboots are the marching boots the German soldiers wear, and Misha is so dazzled by them that he wants to become a soldier himself.
Q 04At the start of Milkweed, which shouted word does the nameless orphan boy believe is his own name?
Stopthief
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.
Q 05Which real Polish doctor, who ran a Jewish orphanage, appears as a character in Milkweed?
Janusz Korczak
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.
Q 06The milkweed plant that gives the novel Milkweed its title is the larval food of which insect?
Monarch butterfly
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.
Q 07During World War II, Americans collected the silky floss of the milkweed plant to fill what?
Life jackets
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.
Q 08In Milkweed, which part of Misha's body is shot off when he is caught outside after the curfew?
His earlobe
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.
Q 09Which Nazi leader's drive through the ghetto in Milkweed ends Misha's wish to become a soldier?
Heinrich Himmler
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.
Q 10The author of Milkweed won the 1991 Newbery Medal for which novel about an orphan seeking a home?
Maniac Magee
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.
Q 11In Milkweed, what colour is the hair of the older street thief who names and protects Misha?
Red
Red hair, along with a familiar voice, is how Misha recognises the uniformed Nazi who attacks him during the deportations as his old protector.
Q 12Which surname, shared with a famous Polish marshal, is Misha given in Milkweed?
Pilsudski
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.
Q 13In the false history invented for Misha in Milkweed, in which country was he born?
Russia
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.
Q 21In Milkweed, what does the cruel, child-hating ghetto guard Buffo always smell of?
Mint
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.
Q 22In Milkweed, Janina's Uncle Shepsel tries to stop being treated as a Jew by converting to what?
Lutheranism
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.
Q 23In Milkweed, what was the profession of Janina's father before restrictions on Jews ended his work?
Pharmacist
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.
Q 14In the invented past Misha is given in Milkweed, his family lives by horse trading and what else?
Fortune telling
Fortune telling is his mother's gift in the tale, which has the family roaming the countryside in a wagon caravan.
Q 15What does a panicked Misha grab and run off with at Janina's birthday party in Milkweed?
The cake
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.
Q 16In Milkweed, what is Misha stealing from a backyard garden when he first meets Janina?
A tomato
A tomato from her family's backyard starts the friendship, and Misha soon begins stealing extra loaves of bread to leave for her family.
Q 17In Milkweed, what does Misha use to slip out of the ghetto at night and steal food?
A gap in the wall
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.
Q 18In Milkweed, what does Janina imagine the fluffy milkweed seeds drifting over the ghetto to be?
Angels
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.
Q 19Which one-armed boy from Misha's orphan gang in Milkweed is hanged by the Nazis for smuggling?
Olek
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.
Q 20In Milkweed, what does the orphan Big Henryk wear on his feet instead of shoes?
Bank coin bags
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.
Q 24Which surname does Misha take in Milkweed once Janina's father accepts him as part of the family?
Milgrom
Milgrom replaces the surname his street guardian invented, after Misha survives hours of standing at attention in the snow beside the family.
Q 25Which Jewish festival does Janina's father invite Misha to celebrate in the ghetto in Milkweed?
Hanukkah
Hanukkah is the family's answer to despair, because Janina's father insists that Jewish people must never forget how to be happy.
Q 26In Milkweed, what does Misha search the entire city for to cheer up a despondent Janina?
An egg
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.
Q 27Besides food, what does Misha steal in Milkweed to help the orphans' home run by a kindly doctor?
Coal
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.
Q 28During the deportations in Milkweed, Misha last sees a Nazi soldier toss Janina into which vehicle?
A boxcar
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.
Q 29In Milkweed, which old friend in Nazi uniform shoots Misha during the deportations to save him?
Uri
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.
Q 30After the ghetto is emptied in Milkweed, where is Misha held and made to work for three years?
On a farm
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.