Q 01/05

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

A) Kraków

B) Lublin

C) Warsaw

D) Gdańsk

Answer · why

C) 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 in...

Q 02/05

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

A) Jerry Spinelli

B) Lois Lowry

C) Louis Sachar

D) Madeleine L'Engle

Answer · why

A) 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'...

Q 03/05

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

A) Brownshirts

B) Greycoats

C) Ironheels

D) Jackboots

Answer · why

D) 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 04/05

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

A) Guttersnipe

B) Stopthief

C) Pickpocket

D) Scoundrel

Answer · why

B) 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 05/05

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

A) Janusz Korczak

B) Oskar Schindler

C) Irena Sendler

D) Raoul Wallenberg

Answer · why

A) 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 foo...