Milkwees, Jerry Spinelli cycle 22 reading response 75-90

In this section Misha and the other boys that were living in the Stable were ratted out by someone. The Jackboots came to their stable and took all of them on a little parade to the "ghetto." Misha and the other boys marched down the streets following a trolley into the walled off community, the ghetto. They came to a gate in the red-bricked wall with Jackboots on the other side. The Jackboots opened the gate to let Misha and the boys into the ghetto.
Once in the ghetto, Misha went straight to Janina's apartment. When he got there on Janina and her uncle were there. Her parents were off working. Her father was let out of the ghetto to work in the city and the mother was working in the Jackboot factory where she makes Jackboot uniforms. Janina and Misha go and play in the streets of the ghetto and Janina returns home and Misha meets up with the boy from the stable.
Misha lives in a bunch of rubble with the stable boys. To keep themselves warm they huddle up underneath a carpet rug. Once they all wake up they all go their own separate ways. Misha wonders through the ghetto wanting food. There isn't much food in the ghetto or the vendors are stading by their food with clubs.
Misha one day find a way to steal food and takes two roasted rats, eats one and takes the other one to Janina.
In this section I think that Misha doesn't understand the harsh time in the ghetto. I think that Misha is going to find out the hard way about how bad it is in the ghetto.

Milkweed Jerry Spinelli cycle 21 reading response 60-75

In this section Misha sees a Merry-go-round for the first time. He really wants to ride it but Uri doesn't let him. Misha always goes back to the Merry-go-round and dreams he would ride it. One day, when Misha was alone, he decided to ride on one. As he got on a little girl screamed out that he doesn't have a ticket and Misha got thrown off the Merry-go-round. Another little girl yells out that Misha is a Jew and then kicks him. After that many children kick Misha and run back to their mothers. Misha, afraid, runs away.
One night Misha hears music and follows where the music comes from. He is led to the Merr-go-round. Misha rides the Merry-go-round many times.
The next couple of days Misha ends up in a parade. Not any parade but a slow depressing parade of Jews. Uri tells Misha that they are all going to the Ghetto. Misha, being the curious boy that he is, tries to talk to all the people but no one answers his questions. He then finds Janina and talks to her for awhile. At the end everyone in the parade starts running.

In this section I am noticing how badly treated the Jews were. The Jews were moving out of their own homes so that the other people could live in them.

milkweed Jerry Spinelli cycle 20 reading response 45-60

In these pages Misha finds new things to eat and do. There isn't much bread anymore so Misha learns to eat anything. He also starts to give coal to people because it is cold. He gives coal to the orphanage one day covered in coal dust. The orphanage man gave Misha a bath and new clothes. Misha then heads back home.
One day in the barn Misha finds a man in a stall. He squats next to the man and talks to him for awhile. He asks the man if he wants something to eat. Misha goes to get some food but when Misha returns to the stall, the man is gone.

In this section of reading, I am getting a feel of the town. I am noticing that the town is going through a hard time and it is cold. This section ends with me in a mysterious mood. I am wondering who that mysterious man was in the stall.

Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli. Cycle 19 reading response 30-45

Uri finds information about Stopthief and then tells Stopthief about it. He find that Stopthief's real name is Misha Pilsudski and had a mother, a father, and many brothers and sisters. Misha's family traveld in wagons everywhere because they were Gypsys. One day Misha's family was bombed by a Jackboot and his family was separated. Misha was with him mother, father, and his favorite horse. When his mother and father decided to stop the wagon they were captured by farmers who hated Gypsys. Misha's mother and father were tied to trees and Misha and her favorite horse were taken in as prisoners. Misha escaped and became what he is now.
After hearing the story, Misha became facinated by his name and stood in a mirror repeateing his name over and over again. He became bored of doing that so wanted to say it to someone else. Misha was then caught by a Jackboot and ran. He ran into a garden where he found two nice and juicy tomatos. He ate the two tomatos and saw a little girl watching him. He slowly walked away and went home. The next day Misha went back to the garden for more tomatoes but found nothing but a trail of arrows leading into the ground. He dug where the last arrow was and found a Chocolate candy bar. He ate and found the same little girl. This time Misha talked to her. As the little girl was going into her house she invited him to her party the next day. At her party, the little girls parents were sticking candles into the cake and light the candles. Misha thouht that they were going to destory the cake so he immediatly blew out the candles and ran away with the cake back home. At home Misha told Uri the story and Uri laughed. Uri told Misha why the little girl's parents were doing that and they both laughed and ate the cake.
The next day Misha stole a cake and took it to the little girls house. He left the cake on the stairs, knocked on the door, and ran. After that day, Misha would steal bread and leave some on the stairs for the little girl. One night when Misha was going back home after leaving bread he was spotted by a Jackboot. The Jackboots shot at him and shot Misha's ear. Misha returned home and Uri cleaned him up and kept calling Misha stupid.

In this section of reading the author starts to give me more background information about Misha. I think that the information given to me isn't entirely correct though. I think that the author is setting up a twist in the story that will leave me shocked. I believe that because Uri tells Misha that but doesn't say how he found that information out. It leaves me think about how uri got that information and is that information true?

Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli. cycle 18 reading response 15-30

In the next pages of the story Uri and Stopthief go to the parade of Jackboots. Uri keeps his distance from the Jackboots because he knows that they aren’t the nicest people. Stopthief thinks differently. Stopthief ends up running into the parade and runs into a Jackboot. The Jackboot was nice to Stopthief, smiling at him and helping Stopthief up. The Jackboot asks if Stopthief was a Jew but Stopthief says that he is a Gypsy. The Jackboot says I hope so and then walks away. Stopthief then thinks that Jackboots are really nice and he always tries to make friends with any Jackboot he sees. Uri keeps telling Stopthief that Jackboots aren’t nice and avoid them in anyway.
The next day Uri and Stopthief walk down the streets and find a crowd of people. They go and see what is happening. They find a bunch of Jackboots laughing over a man dipping his beard into a bucket of soap-water and scrubbing the sidewalk. Uri then tells Stopthief that they are going. They leave but then see another group of Jackboots laughing as they were cutting an old mans beard. Stopthief then thought that if you had a beard then it was bad. Uri told him that it wasn’t that but it something else.

I think that the Jackboots do not like Jews because when Stopthief runs into the Jackboot he says that he hoped that Stopthief wasn’t a jew. Also it would explain why Uri is so scared of Jackboots because Uri is a Jew. Also the men with beards were probably Jews and that is why they were being humiliated.

Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli, cycle 17 reading response 1-15

Summary: The book starts off with a boy running away from a lady. He is then caught by someone and dragged down ally ways. Then he ends up in a dark hole in in the ground. He finds out that the person who dragged him into the hole tried to do the very same thing that the boy did. They both wanted to get a loaf of bread to eat. The two boys started to talk with each other and introduced themselves to each other. The boy that stole the bread was named stopthief. The other boy was named Uri. 

Uri then took stopthief to meet other boys that Uri hangs out with. There were multiple boys that stayed in a stable with horses. They had a pile of food and other objects. All which were probably stolen. Uri introduced stopthief to the other boys. The boys all called stopthief a runt and a smelly Jew. Stopthief was a small boy but he was fast. Uri told them that he could help them cause he was so fast. The boys were laughing at stopthief so much that they were chased out of the stable by a man who owned the stables. Everyone scrambled and stopthief followed Uri into a den. 

The next day stopthief awoke to Uri bringing in a small bed. Stopthief and Uri set up the bed and headed out to the market place. The market place was bombed by a recent attack and much of the buildings were a pile of rubble. Uri and stopthief walked throught the town and started down a stair case. There were pipes along the stair case and at every pipe Uri would turn a handle. Every handle either shot out air or did nothing. There was one pipe that shot out water. Uri told me to undress and stand by the water. Uri then poured water onto stopthief and scrubbed him with a brush. Uri then gave Stopthief a new set of clothes to wear. They both went into an empty barber shop. Uri gave Stopthief a hair cut and then left the barber shop. 

As they got out of the barber shop people were in transporting sand bags. There was going to be another attack so people were placing sand bags in front of machine guns and ditches. Uri and Stopthief then jumped on a car to get around the town faster but were spotted and were told to get off. They didn't and the people telling them to get off got side tracked by one of the boys stopthief met earlier in the stable was running away with a glass statue of a woman. The boy got tripped and broke the statue but ran away. Just then the people telling Uri and stopthief to get off stopped the car. There was an explosion right in front of the car. The people in the car then ran out of the car. Uri decided to drive the car. Uri was going at a very fast speed and then crashed in to a store and the car tipped over. 

Reflection: This book has a lot of dialogue. From the pages I have read so far, more than half of it was dialogue. The dialogue makes the reading much more smoother and it lets me understand the character better. I helps me to imagine what the character is feeling and it makes me feel like I'm apart of the scene.