An orphan wandering the streets of Warsaw, Misha has no memory of his family of origin. The first semblance of family that Misha knows is Uri, a teenager and fellow orphan who takes a liking to him, watches over him, and gives him a name. Misha contents himself with the made-up family history that Uri gives him, even though he knows deep down that his huge caravan of Russian “Gypsy” relatives doesn’t exist, because even a fictional sense of belonging is more than he’s ever known in real life. (During World War II, when the book is set, “Gypsy” was a descriptor of Roma ethnicity, but it’s now considered an ethnic slur.) Later, Misha befriends the Milgroms, a Jewish family living in the ghetto, and he bonds even more strongly with them due to his willingness to suffer alongside them—even though Misha is not related to them, nor is he likely even Jewish. It’s not until the very end of the book that Misha reunites with blood relatives, and even then, the nontraditional family identity he’s pieced together throughout his life remains an important part of him. Through Misha’s lifelong search for family, Spinelli suggests that genuine family bonds are forged in various ways, and that although biological family is important, it isn’t the exclusive or necessarily the most powerful kind.
Misha’s familial bond with Uri—an older boy who takes a gruff, big-brotherly attitude towards him—is mostly based on the protection Uri offers. Though Uri proves himself genuinely loyal in the end, Misha’s relationship with him has a dysfunctional aspect. Uri feels a fierce protectiveness toward Misha for reasons that are never fully explained (beyond a hint that his real younger brother died a long time ago). He’s even violent toward Misha when he defies Uri’s efforts to keep him safe. When Misha makes a spectacle of himself in public even though Uri has warned him never to call attention to himself, Uri is furious: “I had never seen him so mad,” Misha thinks. “He punched me in the forehead. The back of my head banged against the wall. ‘Someday I'm going to have to kill you to keep you alive. […] He stomped off. By the time he reached the street, I was at his side.” Uri’s protectiveness takes a disturbingly violent turn sometimes, but Misha hasn’t known family love of any kind before, so he doesn’t question Uri’s treatment of him—it doesn’t dissuade Misha from faithfully following the only guardian he has. Uri’s tough love sets up the story’s climax: when Misha tries to follow his adoptive sister, Janina Milgrom, who’s just been thrown onto a train headed for a concentration camp, he’s struck down by a Nazi. “When I landed, a club pounded my shoulders and I was kicked again […] ‘Die, piglet!’ The voice. I looked up. The red hair. The face. ‘Uri!’ I cried, and the gun went off.” Though Uri has been absent from the ghetto for some time, Misha hasn’t known until this moment that Uri has actually been serving with the German soldiers. Now, his harsh efforts to instill a sense of self-preservation in Misha make sense—he knew exactly what Misha would be up against and wanted to give him a fighting chance to survive. And when he shoots Misha, he clips Misha’s ear, only injuring him badly enough to make him miss the train—thereby sparing his life. Uri did care about Misha all along, even though his harshness (as well as his dishonesty about his identity) make him a less-than-ideal brother figure.
In the Milgrom family (whom Misha met when he befriended Janina and began leaving scraps of food outside their home), Misha forms a healthier familial bond through shared suffering—and he also feels fully accepted for the first time. After Misha endures an all-night roundup in the ghetto alongside the Milgrom family—standing at attention for hours in the snow—he finds he’s bonded with the family in a new way. “When I awoke, […] Uncle Shepsel, propped on his elbow, was pointing at me and saying, ‘Why is he sleeping here? […] He's not family.’ Mr. Milgrom looked straight at him. ‘He is now.’” Misha isn’t related to the Milgroms, but shared suffering—helping one another endure pain and humiliation in order to survive—knits people together on a deeper level than blood alone can. From now on, Misha doesn’t just visit the Milgroms every once in a while, but often spends the night with them. “From the moment Mr. Milgrom said, ‘He is now,’ my identity as a Gypsy vanished. […] Deep down I guess I had always known my […] history was merely Uri's story, not reality.” For Misha, his identity is a reflection of his relationships with those around him. Now that he’s accepted into a real family, he no longer needs the fictional identity Uri had bestowed on him. Though this one, too, is based on a fiction (he’s not really Janina’s brother), it’s more genuine than Uri’s made-up story because it’s grounded on mutual loyalty and affection.
At the end of the novel, Misha finally reunites with his biological family: his long-lost daughter and granddaughter (the offspring of a brief, failed marriage after he moved to the United States). When he has the chance to give his granddaughter a middle name, he immediately chooses Janina, the name of his adoptive sister in the ghetto. This suggests that the various forms of family can be equally real in their different ways. Though his reunion with biological family provides a resolution for his life as an orphan and wanderer, it doesn’t supplant the genuine bonds forged with his adoptive family decades earlier, which remain vibrant in Misha’s mind long after the Milgroms’ deaths. This reinforces Spinelli’s point that although biological family is very important to a person’s sense of identity, blood isn’t the only thing that forms a family—love and loyalty (especially forged through painful experiences) do, too.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Family ThemeTracker
Family Quotes in Milkweed
I, Misha Pilsudski, was born a Gypsy somewhere in the land of Russia. My family, including two great-grandfathers and a great-great-grandmother who was one hundred and nine years old, traveled from place to place in seven wagons pulled by fourteen horses. There were nineteen more horses trailing the wagons, as my father was a horse trader. My mother told fortunes with cards.
I loved my story. No sooner did I hear the words than I became my story. I loved myself. For days afterward, I did little else but stare into the barbershop mirror, fascinated by the face that stared back.
“Misha Pilsudski…,” I kept saying. “Misha Pilsudski… Misha Pilsudski…” And then it was no longer enough to stare at myself and repeat my name to myself. I needed to tell someone else.
I had an idea. The next day I snatched two loaves of bread. One I gave to Uri, the other I took to the house of Janina the girl. It had snowed overnight. Brown stubble poked through the white blanket covering the garden. I pushed the snow from the top step. I set the loaf down, knocked on the door, and ran.
The next day I came back to look. The bread was gone.
That was how it started.
One time I entered a house through an unlocked back door. […] I moved through the kitchen and suddenly found myself standing in a doorway, staring at a family of people having dinner around a long table. Food and silver and glass sparkled everywhere. In the middle was a great, golden roasted bird, perhaps a goose or turkey. I must have surprised them, for all movement stopped as they stared at me while I stared at the table—but not for long. As always, I was the first to move. I believe this was the first rule of life that I learned, though it was a twitch in my muscles rather than a thought in my head: Always be the first to move. As long as that happened, they would have to catch up, and I could not be caught.
I had never seen him so mad. His hair looked redder than ever, only this time it was not because he was laughing. He punched me in the forehead. The back of my head banged against the wall. "Someday I'm going to have to kill you to keep you alive." He flapped his arm. "You want to do it your way? You want to go off by yourself? Not listen to me? Go ahead!" He kicked me. "Go ahead!" He stomped off. By the time he reached the street, I was at his side.
Janina looked at me. “What happened?”
“Unlucky orphans,” I said. I told her that was what Enos called them—orphans who did not live in Doctor Korczak's home, or any other, and who roamed the streets hungry and begging and sick.
“Be glad we're not unlucky orphans,” I told her.
“Is gray Jon an unlucky orphan?” she said.
“Oh no,” I said. “He's a lucky one. He's with us.”
When I awoke, I thought I was back in the courtyard under the blinding lights, but it was only the sun in the window. And Uncle Shepsel, propped on his elbow, was pointing at me and saying, “Why is he sleeping here? He smells.”
“I regret to inform you,” said Mr. Milgrom, “that you are not a rose garden yourself these days.”
Uncle Shepsel pounded the floor. “He's not family.”
Mr. Milgrom looked straight at him. “He is now.”
From the moment Mr. Milgrom said, “He is now,” my identity as a Gypsy vanished. Gone were the seven wagons, seven brothers, five sisters, Greta the speckled mare. Deep down I guess I had always known my Gypsy history was merely Uri's story, not reality. I didn't miss it. When you own nothing, it's easy to let things go. I supposed my last name was Milgrom now, so Pilsudski went too. I kept Misha. I liked it.
Uncle Shepsel opened his eyes and smiled down at me. I had seen the same smile in the room lately, as he read the book that had changed him from a Jew to a Lutheran. […] Suddenly his expression changed. He seemed confused. He looked hard into my face and did not seem to know me. "You go. Every night you go," he said. "Why do you come back?" I did not have an answer. Maybe he found it in my face, for after a while he turned and walked off.
Now it was Hanukkah time again […] On the first day Mr. Milgrom told me the story of Hanukkah. How long ago the Greeks tried to destroy everything Jewish. ("See, this is not the first time.") How the Jews were outnumbered and had no chance against the Greeks but beat them anyway. How the Jews celebrated by lighting an oil lamp. But the celebration would have to be short because there was only enough oil to last for one day. And then a miracle happened. The oil lasted for eight days.
I smacked her. I shouted at her. But I could not change her. I could not understand her moods, her outbursts. I mostly accepted the world as I found it. She did not. She smacked me back and kicked me. In time I found my own best way to deal with her. On many days I went off to a favorite bomb crater and lowered myself into it and licked traces of fat from between my fingers and closed my eyes and remembered the good old days when ladies walked from bakeries with bulging bags of bread.
The Jackboot flung me against a wall. I saw his hand go to his holster. I saw the gun come out and point between my eyes. "Die, piglet!" The voice. I looked up. The red hair. The face. “Uri!" I cried, and the gun went off.
The man placed his foot on my chest. "You're a Jew," he said.
"Yes," I answered. I pointed to my armband. "See?"
“What are you doing here?"
"I'm following the train. Janina. I'm going to the ovens."
"What ovens?"
"The ovens for the Jews. I'm a filthy son of Abraham. They forgot me. Can you take me to the ovens?"
The man spit in the weeds. "I don't know what you're talking about. You make no sense. Are you insane?"
I think of all the voices that have told me who I have been, the names I've had. Call me thief. Call me stupid. […] I don't care. Empty-handed victims once told me who I was. Then Uri told me. Then an armband. Then an immigration officer. And now this little girl in my lap, this little girl whose call silences the tramping Jackboots. Her voice will be the last. […] I am . . . Poppynoodle.
