Milkweed

by

Jerry Spinelli

Janina Milgrom Character Analysis

Janina is a young Jewish girl, seven years old at the beginning of the novel, whom Misha befriends when he wanders into her backyard and steals a tomato from her garden. She’s Mr. and Mrs. Milgrom’s daughter and Shepsel’s niece. Janina has curly hair and huge brown eyes. Upon meeting Misha, she invites him to her birthday party. She and Misha reunite during the march to the ghetto, when Misha attaches himself to her family. Janina is spirited, willful, and very spoiled. She can even be quite bratty, screaming at her sick mother, throwing Misha’s belongings over the ghetto wall, and trying to get him into trouble. Janina is also stubborn, determined, and brave. The summer after they move into the ghetto, Janina starts following Misha when he smuggles in the city at night and cannot be dissuaded from smuggling herself—no matter how much Misha tries to avoid her, and even after Mr. Milgrom forbids her. After her father tells her to stop sneaking out of the ghetto with Misha, she just sneaks out by herself. Despite her demanding nature, Janina is also capable of kindness, smuggling food for the little kids who share their cramped apartment. After Mrs. Milgrom’s death, Janina becomes despondent, but she regains some of her old spark after Misha goes to great lengths to smuggle an egg for her. When Misha tries to get Janina to run away from the ghetto to avoid the deportations, she throws a fit and refuses to leave. Misha last sees her being grabbed by a Nazi soldier and thrown onto a boxcar. Many decades later, Misha gives his granddaughter, Wendy, the middle name Janina.

Janina Milgrom Quotes in Milkweed

The Milkweed quotes below are all either spoken by Janina Milgrom or refer to Janina Milgrom. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Relationships Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

I told her how I found a low place in the wall and simply stepped over. I added: "I can go anywhere." I was not boasting, I was simply stating a fact. I had come to love my small size, my speed, my slipperiness. Sometimes I thought of myself as a bug or a tiny rodent, slipping into places that the eye could not even see.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

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.”

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom (speaker), Doctor Korczak, Enos, Jon
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

She stood on tiptoes and held it as high as she could and let it go. It sailed toward the sky.

"That's my angel," she said.

Then they were all around us, milkweed puffs, flying. I picked one from her hair. I pointed. "Look." A milkweed plant was growing by a heap of rubble.

It was thrilling just to see a plant, a spot of green in the ghetto desert. The bird-shaped pods had burst and the puffs were spilling out, flying off. I cracked a pod from the stem and blew into the silk-lined hollow, sending the remaining puffs sailing, a snowy shower rising, vanishing into the clouds.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom (speaker)
Related Symbols: Angels, Milkweed
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Uncle Shepsel (speaker), Janina Milgrom
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Mr. Tobiasz Milgrom
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Then I saw her. […] She was a shadow cut loose, held above the other shadows by a pair of Jackboot arms. She was thrashing and screaming above the silent masses. […] And then the arms came forward and she was flying, Janina was flying over the shadow heads and the dogs and soldiers, her arms and legs turning slowly. She seemed so light, so right for the air […] I thought she would sail forever like a milkweed puff on an endless breeze, and I was running and wishing I could fly with her, and then she was gone, swallowed by the black maw of the boxcar[.]

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom
Related Symbols: Milkweed
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

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?"

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), The farmer (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 45 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri, Wendy Janina
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
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Janina Milgrom Quotes in Milkweed

The Milkweed quotes below are all either spoken by Janina Milgrom or refer to Janina Milgrom. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Relationships Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

I told her how I found a low place in the wall and simply stepped over. I added: "I can go anywhere." I was not boasting, I was simply stating a fact. I had come to love my small size, my speed, my slipperiness. Sometimes I thought of myself as a bug or a tiny rodent, slipping into places that the eye could not even see.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

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.”

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom (speaker), Doctor Korczak, Enos, Jon
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

She stood on tiptoes and held it as high as she could and let it go. It sailed toward the sky.

"That's my angel," she said.

Then they were all around us, milkweed puffs, flying. I picked one from her hair. I pointed. "Look." A milkweed plant was growing by a heap of rubble.

It was thrilling just to see a plant, a spot of green in the ghetto desert. The bird-shaped pods had burst and the puffs were spilling out, flying off. I cracked a pod from the stem and blew into the silk-lined hollow, sending the remaining puffs sailing, a snowy shower rising, vanishing into the clouds.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom (speaker)
Related Symbols: Angels, Milkweed
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Uncle Shepsel (speaker), Janina Milgrom
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Mr. Tobiasz Milgrom
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Then I saw her. […] She was a shadow cut loose, held above the other shadows by a pair of Jackboot arms. She was thrashing and screaming above the silent masses. […] And then the arms came forward and she was flying, Janina was flying over the shadow heads and the dogs and soldiers, her arms and legs turning slowly. She seemed so light, so right for the air […] I thought she would sail forever like a milkweed puff on an endless breeze, and I was running and wishing I could fly with her, and then she was gone, swallowed by the black maw of the boxcar[.]

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom
Related Symbols: Milkweed
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

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?"

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), The farmer (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 45 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Stopthief / Misha Pilsudski (speaker), Janina Milgrom, Uri, Wendy Janina
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis: