Seedfolks

Author: Paul Fleischman
Publication Date: 1997
Type of Book: Novel

This book shares the story of a local community in Cleveland who builds a garden in an abandoned lot.  Each chapter of the book shares the story of a different member of the community who is somehow tied to the garden. You learn the unexpected ways in which this garden ties the people who once lived separately together. The story takes readers through the gardens journey showing it as an empty lot in the beginning, to slowly being transformed into a small garden, to its final form of a huge community garden that ends up positively impacting the local community in ways they couldn't have imagined.

I still do not know how I feel about this story. It was an easy read and the I kind of liked the way the book was set up. I liked how each chapter shared the story of a person from the community, but at the same time I wish there was deeper character development and I could read more about certain characters. However I did like that throughout the story you learned the significance of the garden by reading the different stories. This isn't a story that I would elect to re-read for the fun of it.

I would recommend this story for older students. The content and set up of the story is too challenging for young readers. Teachers could use this story as a way to teach students how separate pieces of writing can be tied together for a larger purpose. The class could do a project where they have a topic and each student works on writing one chapter of the book. In the end they could have a book that is written in the same unique style at the book Seedfolks.

Image References:
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/seedfolks