High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Milkweed is a 2003 young adult historical fiction novel by American author Jerry Spinelli. The book is about a boy in Warsaw, Poland in the years of World War II during the Holocaust. Over time he is taken in by a Jewish group of orphans and he must avoid the German troops (or "Jackboots") while living off the streets with other orphans. The story narrator is the boy in the future living in America recalling his past experiences. Despite being a historical fiction novel, Doctor Korczak, a minor character in the story is based on a real person named Janusz Korczak.