Seedfolks

Reader Response to Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman

Back cover reads:

"A vacant lot, rat-infested and filled with garbage, looked like no place for agarden. Especially to a neighborhood of strangers where no one seems to care. Until one day, a young girl clears a small space and digs into the hard-packed soil to plant her precious bean seeds. Suddenly, the soil holds promise: To Curtis, who believes he can win back Lateesha's heart with a harvest of tomatoes; to Virgil's dad, who sees a fortune to be made from growing lettuce; and even to Maricela, 16 and pregnant, wishing she were dead.
13 very different voices--old, young, Haitian, hispanic, tough, haunted, and hopeful tell one amazing story about a garden that transforms a neighborhood."

My Rxn:

An awesome book. very short read. tons of different cultural backgrounds. it's really really reminiscient of house on mango street. especially here:

"These people leave when they can, like the others. I'm the only one staying. It's so. Staying and staring out this same window" (5).

It's only about 70 pages, and there are 13 stories narrating different perspectives on the neighborhood garden. it's very hopeful, which also likens it to mango street. some of the wordage is just awesome.

"The older you are, the younger you get when you move to the US. They don't teach you that equation in school. Big Brain, Mr. Smoltz, my 8th grade math teacher, hasn't even heard of it. it's not in Gateway to Algebra. It's Garcia's Equation. I'm the Garcia. Two years after my father and I moved here from Guatemala I could speak English. I learned it on the playground and watching lots of TV. Don't believe what people say--cartoons make you smart[...] He used me to make phone calls and to talk to the landlady and to buy things in stores where you had to use English. He got younger. I got older" (13-14).

"I stared at his busy fingers, then his eyes. They were focused, not faraway or confused. He'd changed from baby back into a man" (17).

"One Saturday, when the garden was fullest, I stood up a minute to straighten my back. And what did I see? With a few exceptions, the blacks on one side, the whites on another, the Central Americans and Asians toward the back. The garden was a copy of the neighborhood. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. A duck gives birth to a duckling, not a moose" (26).

"That small circle of earth became a second home to both of us. Gardening boring? Never! it has suspense, tragedy, startly developments-- a soap opera growing out of the ground" (49).

"If you're a teenager, the whole world hates you. If you're a pregnant teenager, people think you should be burned at the stake. I'm a Mexican, pregnant 16 year old. So shoot me and get it over with" (52).

"I prayed she wouldn't recognize me, but naturally she did, and asked me all the usual questions. I should have had the answers printed up on a card to hand out" (54).


I would certainly recommend this to just about anyone. although, i think that the targeted age range is 6-8th grade. it wins a Word Nerd Seal of Approval! yay! excellent way to integrate multiculturalism into the classroom.... i'd have each student pick a character with which they identify most and maybe do a little project.

19 (from the list) down. 31 to go!