Customer Reviews

Seedfolks

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Paul Fleischman's novel "Seedfolks" is only 69 pages long, but the author packs a lot of emotional power into this story. "Seedfolks" takes place in a troubled urban neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. The story begins when a young Vietnamese-American girl starts a small vegetable garden in a plot of land in a neglected, garbage-filled lot. From this small start, a project begins which transforms the neighborhood.

This is a moving story which presents multi-cultural urban life in both its negative and positive aspects. Each chapter is told in the first person by a different member of the community. Thus, by the end of the book we have heard a great diversity of voices: male and female, of many age groups, and of many different ethnic backgrounds.

I was really impressed with this book, and recommend it to both younger readers and adults. For an interesting companion text to "Seedfolks," try "O Pioneers!", the classic novel by Willa Cather.

The diversity of the world is represented by the very real and honest characters who live near the vacant, trash-filled lot that soon becomes a mecca of collaboration, peace, and beauty in this novel. There are 13 chapters to this book, each narrated in the first person by a different character who somehow finds some answer to his/her life's needs through the transformation of a simple garden. You will appreciate the honesty of each character, from the son who sees his father become a greedy liar to the man who understands that sometimes we are responsible for our own segregation. You will love seeing the emotional growth in a Korean woman who is recouperating from a life of tragedy, and your heart will be touched by Curtis who is trying to make amends for his past decisions. What is most impressive is that Fleischman is able to tell this delightful tale in such a way that the reader feels as if they're in on a secret--as if we know how the lives of the characters connect in a way that they do not understand themselves. If you like this clever novel, you will also enjoy Paul Fleischman's Whirligig, which has a similar affect on the reader. I recommend this book to young readers (6th grade+) as well as adults.

I read this outloud to my fourth-grade class a few years ago, and it was a wonderful experience. The book was absolutely appropriate for 10-12 year olds-- especially in a group or discussion format. (Some of the subtle issues might be lost to young readers reading on their own.) This book is a terrific introduction to issues of diversity and the importance of difference in the world. My class was an all-white upper-middle class group, and it was eye-opening for them without being overwhelming, heavy-handed, or too challenging. This book defines hope, and is a necessary part of a curriculum for this alone. Also good for discussions of change, feelings of ambiguity, class-issues, etc.

SeedFolks By Paul Fleischman

Harper Collins Publisher 1997

Flesh Kincaid Index- 4.9

69 pages

Genre: contemporary fiction

Synopsis of plot: Seedfolks takes place in Cleveland, Ohio in a low-income neighborhood. The main setting is a small, abandoned and run down lot in the neighborhood. The book is narrated by a different character every chapter, although the presence and connection of all the narrators is intertwined throughout the chapters. The novel opens with Kim, a young Vietnamese girl struggling with the early loss of her father. To gain a connection to her otherwise estranged dad, she decides to plant some beans to honor his life as a farmer. She chooses the abandoned lot as her garden. The chapters that follow introduce other characters that end up planting in the lot as well, all for their own unique reasons. The reader sees the narrators from past chapters showing up in the new narrators' chapters. Each character has their own problem that essentially is solved by their participation in the growth of the garden. Strangers who normally do not acknowledge each other's existence begin to say hello, offer advice, and communicate across language barriers.

Address negative aspects of the book: One of the negative aspects of the book that I encountered was that the chapters are so short! Each character had their own personal story to share, but a few pages do not do them all justice! The author leaves you wanting more, but in a negative way. Another negative aspect is that I still had questions and concerns about each character when the book ended. The book concludes the same way it starts, with a narrator's story, and some strings are never tied up. This frustrated me as the reader.

Personal appraisal of the book: I thought this book was fantastic. It was quick to read and really hard to put down. I got attached to each character and really enjoyed seeing past narrators through the new narrator's eyes. The connection of all the characters was also really interesting. Seeing how Kim, the first character, is brought up in subsequent chapters and appears throughout the book was an appealing and unique quality of the writer. Living in a city like Cleveland, I can identify with how strangers ignore each other on the streets and feel they have nothing in common- even though they live within blocks and see each other every day! The diversity of the characters reminded me of my own neighborhood, and since reading the book, I've decided to say a simple hello to my fellow neighbors when passing them around the block. It's interesting to see how people react to kindness from strangers! You should definitely consider spending the couple of hours it takes to read this book to begin to think about how the book parallels aspects of your own life. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars!

Seedfolks is a book about a vacant city lot in Cleveland, Ohio that is abandoned until one day a Vietnamese girl decides to plant some beans as a way to become connected to her father who died before she was born. It tells the story of 13 different people who come together by this garden. They are all different ages and have different ethnic backgrounds and jobs. Somehow this garden brings them all together and means something different to each of them. The individual stories are interesting and touching.

My favorite part of the book is Gonzolo's Tio Juan story. He came to the U.S. with Gonzolo's mother and brother. Because he didn't speak English and couldn't work he would wonder around all day long with nothing to do and had to be baby sat by Gonzolo who who referred to him as a baby. One day he went off on his own in the neighborhood and came across the garden. The next day he went back and started working in the garden and planting seeds. Back in Guatemala he used to be a farmer and this gave him life again and he went from being a baby back to a man again.

I would recommend that you read Seedfolks. I think you will be touched by the 13 different people who are brought together through this community garden. In Reading Gonzolo's story it made me think about my Mom's parents who are immigrants from Portugal and how they too must of felt like Gonzolo's Tio Juan when they first arrived in the U.S., like they were babies and didn't know anything.

I think "Seedfolks" is a good book because it is fun to read and it has alot of action.Another reason why I think "Seedfolks" is a good book because I think the book once you read it.I thought it was a boring book but when I read it,it was way better than I thought.

It all started with one little girl. Kim's father died before she was even born, and she is afraid that he might not know her as he looks down from heaven. So she decides to do something to make him recognize her and to make him proud. He was a farmer back in Vietnam, so she takes a handful of bean seeds to a trash-covered vacant lot near her inner-city apartment and plants them. When he looks down and sees them, he will know she is his daughter.

Someone looks down from a window and is intrigued by this girl who keeps visiting the vacant lot in secret. Upon investigation she sees what is going on and decides to clear a little patch of land for a tiny garden of her own. Others observe and like the idea, and soon the vacant lot is covered with a patchwork of gardens from all sorts of people living nearby. Someone is able to bully the city into moving the trash off of this land. People who usually avoid eye contact at all cost are suddenly meeting neighbors and relating to one another. Through this garden project, a neighborhood of strangers becomes a real community.

I liked the characters in this story. They were all very vivid and their stories were well thought out. I also liked being able to see the different perspectives on this garden, and the different reasons people decided to plant things here.

I didn't like that each person's story was just dropped after it was told. I wanted the author to go back and write what the people were thinking. What did Kim think when her garden idea caught on? Was Sam able to stop the segregation he saw developing in the garden? I wanted some followup to each story.

The story begins in Cleveland Ohio, on a street called Gibb. Gibb St. was so diverse it was as though you put all the grains of sand on a beach and crammed them onto a pin head. Then, hope for this urban town comes in the form of a garden, and brings the community together, just because of six tiny lima beans. In the beginning of the book we find the neighborhood divided and separate. There's high crime, homelessness, disease, poverty. and pollution. The people live like rats in a dump, and often come and go. "It's like a cheap hotel, you leave as soon as you get enough money."- Ana Gibb street was polluted so bad, that it wasn't suitable for human inhabitation. Cleveland was a town for the immigrants, with no real industry, no hope, and no real future. But, then came a girl named Kim. One cold, musty day a girl named Kim planted six lima beans in a vacant lot filled with garbage, little did she know that those beans would become an inspiration for the community. After the seeds matured, people began to notice them among the garbage, and suddenly a glimmer of hope shone in their hearts. They all started planting their own seeds such as beans, lettuce, flowers, and tomatoes. Through the garden people began to take their dull tapestries of fate and make the colors brighter, and the patterns more intricate, and complicated. People began to work together yet, still some diversity remained. " First came the fences, then the "Keep Out" signs. And then finally the barbed wire, "Paradise" was turning back into Cleveland again." -Sam Although the diversity still remained, it was still a little better than Cleveland, little did these people know that when they started their gardens, they would forever cross their strings of fate. After the people of Gibb Street began to get over their diversity, they began to become friends. As their friendship bloomed, so did the lives of the people. They learned to love, care, and be friends once again. Some of the people who had fights with their fellow gardeners before to resolve their conflicts and realized they all had been blind. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know it was you then" - Polish Lady to Amir The garden gave people more faith and because of their faith people like Sae Young found their way out of their little microcosms, and came back to the land of the living. Others, like Marcella realized that their problems in life, might not be problems, but blessings in disguise. Because of the garden their was a renewal of faith, there for making the urban life for the characters in "Seedfolks" more decent. The garden made life worth living for everyone in Seedfolks. It made a impact with all people who came into contact with it. It shows that is we can all find something in common with each other, we can get past our pre justices, and all get along. During the beginning of the book the community was separated, and divided, then it began to come together in the middle, and in the end the community was much more than a community, but a family. And to think it started out in the form of six tiny lima beans... I really liked the pace of this book and found it interesting, and intricate. It kept you thiniking about everything that happenend. I found myself going "hmm, now why did the author put that in there?" when I read things going on in the story. I really liked this book and would reccomend it for anyone young, or old.

Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks (Harper Collins, 1997)

I've read a lot of books in the past few weeks, as I often do right around the new year for some reason. The best of them this year was Seedfolks, a kids' book about a community garden in Cleveland and how it came to be. (For the record, yahoo's map doesn't locate a Gibb Street anywhere in Cleveland; if this is based on a true story, Fleischman has masked the location of the garden in question.)

The story begins with Kim, a Vietnamese girl living in a Cleveland slum. In order to connect with a father she never knew, she plants a few lima beans in a junk-filled lot across the street from her tenement building. From this small act grows a community garden, complete with activist residents getting the city to come clean up the vacant lot, social workers using a plot to teach their charges about life, and, of course, a teacher who takes it upon herself to educate the entire surrounding community.

Sometimes, however, what makes a book great is not its overarching message, but how much latitude the author gives his characters in subverting that message. While the subject of the book is a good one, and it is presented in a novel way, where this book passes from the good to the great is when one of the gardeners notices the way the plots in the garden are panning out, and how everyone self-segregates. When fences start to go up around plots, he notes sadly that what was once Paradise is turning into Cleveland again. It's a passage that stands in direct contrast to the message of the rest of the book; Fleischman, who's been feeding us a steady stream of "wow, this garden has changed my life" stories, pulls the rug out from under us by subverting his own utopia. He doesn't do it again at any time in the book, though from this point on, we do get tougher stories about the various gardeners; still, that one moment of disillusionment colors the entire book, and makes it far deeper and more thought-provoking than it otherwise would be.

A wonderful, wonderful book. **** ½

I think SeedFolk was a good book.Also I think some character were boring and others were okay.The character I dislike was Nora because the author didn't put any infomation at the end.Curtis I also didn't like because the end the author wrote that Lateesha look down out of the window the author could put a little more detail like they lived happily ever after.