Seedfolks
Paul Fleischman (1997)
“Thirteen strangers in a Cleveland neighborhood discover that a vacant lot full of garbage can become a garden — and that planting seeds means planting trust.”
Short Summary
In a run-down Cleveland neighborhood, a Vietnamese girl plants lima beans in a trash-filled vacant lot to honor her dead father. One by one, twelve more residents — each from a different cultural background, each carrying private burdens — notice the garden and begin planting their own crops. Chapter by chapter, narrator by narrator, the lot transforms from an urban wasteland into a community garden that bridges the neighborhood's deep divides of race, age, language, and mistrust.
Detailed Summary
Seedfolks opens with Kim, a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl who has never met her father — he died before she was born. She plants six lima bean seeds in a vacant lot on Gibb Street in Cleveland, hoping to connect with his spirit through the farming he loved in Vietnam. The lot is filled with old refr...