Seedfolks Paul Fleischman Analysis

The eighty seven page novel, Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman, contains various lessons readers can learn throughout the story. However, the central message in Seedfolks is that an individual's actions can change his or her community. First of all, the vacant lot on Gibb Street, is rat-infested and filled with garbage, the lot looked nothing at all like a place for a garden. Until one day, nine year old Kim clears a small space in the lot and digs the hard-packed soil to plant her precious lima beans so that she could connect with her father who she never had a chance to meet due to him passing away before Kim’s birth. At this point in time, Kim explains on page three, “I’d never entered the lot before, or wanted to. I did so now, picking …show more content…
The change in the lot brought numerous different voices together, ranging from old to young and Haitian to Hispanic. From the following of Kim’s first steps into the garden, many others started to follow. Nevertheless, on page seventy two of Seedfolks, Maricela, sixteen and pregnant, wishing she were dead, becomes a part of a pregnant group and from participation in the pregnant group, her attitude altered immensely as she puts, “I stared at the squash plants. It was a world in there. It seemed like I could actually see the leaves and flowers growing and changing. I was in that weird dase. And for just the minute I stopped wishing my baby would die.” By Maricela taking part in the pregnant group and having her hear and realise the other ladies her age were going through the same thing she war, Maricela actually hoped that her baby wouldn’t die. However, this wouldn’t have occurred if the others living near the garden on Gibb Street would have started the garden. In conclusion, the novel seedfolks clearly demonstrates that an individual’s actions can change his or her community . Paul Fleischman, the author of Seedfolks, proves this statement true multiples time throughout his novel. All change requires is the