Gardening and Community
Seedfolks tells the stories of a number of people in a diverse Cleveland, Ohio, neighborhood as they come together over the course of a spring and summer to create a community garden. What begins as nine-year-old Kim’s solo attempt to connect with her deceased father through planting lima beans turns into a robust community garden, where various neighbors can meet. People who never would’ve considered talking to each other find that it’s much easier…
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Nature, Mental Health, and the City
As a story about a community garden in an urban environment, the tension between nature and the city is central to Seedfolks. The abandoned lot that eventually becomes the community garden exemplifies what the novel suggests are the downsides of urban environments: it’s covered in smelly garbage, it’s an eyesore, and it suggests that the neighborhood cares little for beauty or nature. However, through the narrators’ stories of coming to the abandoned lot and…
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The Immigrant Experience
A majority of the narrators in Seedfolks are immigrants. Many hail from Central America or the Caribbean, while many more came to the U.S. from Asia. No matter where the novel’s characters come from, though, almost all find their new lives in Cleveland, Ohio, to be challenging because of their immigrant status. By presenting such a variety of immigrant stories, Seedfolks shows that immigrants all experience a difficult transition from their home country to their…
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Family, Memory, and the Future
A number of the gardeners in Seedfolks are drawn to the community garden not because they personally want to garden, but because a family member does. And while much of the story focuses on how gardening benefits individuals, it’s clear that it has a positive impact on families, too. As Seedfolks shows, gardening can strengthen families through the generations by connecting people to their memories and family history—as well as helping them carry those memories…
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