Seedfolks Study Guide

Name:______Date:______Per:______

Seedfolks Study Guide

Literary Devices:

Review the list of literary devices identified throughout the book.
You’ll need to match the type of figurative language based on a given character quote.
Below are the definitions of the literary devices used in Seedfolks.

Epiphany: A word used to describe a sudden change in the way a character acts or understands the world.

Metaphor: A type of speech that compares or equates two or more things that have something in common. A metaphor does NOT use like or as. Ex. Life is a bowl of cherries.

Simile: A figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things. Simile’s DO use the words like or as. Ex. Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

Personification: A figure of speech in which an animal, object, force of nature, or idea is given human qualities or characteristics. Ex. Tears began to fall from the dark clouds.

Hyperbole: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

Allusion: a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.

Open-Ended Question:

Select a character who impacts the garden.

Fully explain how the character specifically affects the garden.
Explain how the character affects other characters in the book.
Make sure you include at least 2 examples from the text to support your answers.

Character / Facts/Characterizations
Kim /

Started the garden in the spring
9 years old
Planted lima beans so that her father (who was a gardener) will see her “patience and hard work” because he died with no memories of her

Ana /

Old Romanian woman who spends her days people watching
She has lived in Cleveland Heights for decades
She suspects that Kim is mixed up in something she shouldn’t be
She dug up Kim’s beans and was embarrassed for ruining her plant

Wendell /

Does not like the phone because he always gets bad news.
His son was shot and killed and his wife died in a car accident.
Ana called him to go and water Kim’s plant when she hadn’t been to the garden in 4 days
He meets Kim while watering her plants
He decides to plant a section of the lot for himself

Gonzalo /

An 8th grade boy who has immigrated with his family from Guatemala.
He feels “the older you are, the younger you get”
He learns how to prepare the soil and plant seeds from his Tio Juan who had been a farmer.
He connects with his Tio Juan who was lost in America but since the garden has “changed from a baby back into a man again”

Leona /

Her grandmother lived to 99 and swore it was from drinking goldenrod tea every day.
She wants to grow goldenrod but saw the amount of garbage in the lot and knew “this wasn’t a job for no wheelbarrow. This was a job for the telephone”
She called city hall and eventually went down to the Public Health Department with a smelly bag of garbage so that they would meet with her and make arrangements to fix the problem.

Sam /

Discovered the garden when he saw men in jumpsuits cleaning the lot
He is a 78 year old activist who has devoted his life to making the world a better place.
“I used to try to patch up the whole world”
He compares the garden to the famous Garden of Eden
He hires a Puerto Rican teenager to help him dig up the soil and convinces not to plant marijuana but rather pumpkins.
He starts a contest to solve the irrigation issue by offering $20 to any young person that comes up with a good solution.
A young black girl won the contest with her idea to catch rain water from spouts into garbage cans.
He notices that people of the same ethnicity or cultural have planted next to each other creating divisions similar to the neighborhood and people are stealing vegetables so fences are being placed around lots.

Virgil /

He was originally from Haiti and has just finished 5th grade
His father drives a taxi
When clearing his garden plots he found a locket and kept it
His father planted my plots of lettuce because he thought he could sell them for a lot of money and promised him a new 18 speed bike
His father lied to his 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Fleck, and told her he had planted for relatives who lived close by but were really in Haiti or dead
He was expected to take care of the lettuce and said “that lettuce was like having a new baby in the family. And I was like its mother”
The lettuce was planted during the wrong season and it was dying and bugs were eating it
He prayed to the girl in the locket because it reminded him of the Greek goddess of the crops and earth – he asked her to save the lettuce

Sae Young /

Moved from Korea with her husband and opened a dry cleaners because it was only 6 days a week compared to a restaurant which would be longer hours and 7 days a week
They saved their money for their children’s education but she never had children
Her husband died at 37 from a heart attack
She was robbed and beaten two years ago while working and has been very afraid since
She discovered the garden and likes to spend time their; she feels safe their
The garden has healed her feelings of fear and loneliness and she feels like part of a family again.
“I want to be with the people again”
She buys funnels to help people fill their watering cans from the water that collects from the spouts.

Curtis /

A body builder that has planted tomatoes to try to win back an old love, Lateesha
She broke up with him because he wasn’t ready to commit and other girls were always hanging all over him
Lateesha lives across the street from the garden so he hopes that she’ll see that he’s changed because she won’t talk to him
“You don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone”
His tomatoes got very big and other people were taking them so he hired Royce to protect his plot.
He hung a sign that said “Lateesha’s Tomatoes” because he felt people would be less likely to take them if they knew they were for someone specific.

Nora /

Is a British woman who takes care of Mr. Myles who has suffered two strokes and can no longer talk.
She is worried that Mr. Myles is near death but says “we mustn’t stop living before our time”
Walking past the garden, Mr. Myles motioned to stop maybe because it reminded him of something in his past
She was determined that he do more than watch so she filled a trash barrel with soil and he planted flowers.
She compares the garden to a soap opera because it was exciting to watch the sprouts appear
Mr. Myles had life back in his eyes
They became friendly with other people who planted in the lot and they felt connected and rooted just like the plants

Maricela /

16 year old pregnant Mexican girl
Dropped out of high school because of pregnancy
She doesn’t want baby but her parents are forcing her to have it
She is in a program with other pregnant teens to earn her degree
The leader of the group is making them garden so that they learn to take care of something before they have their babies
Maricela does not like having to garden and is not interested in the radishes and swiss chard that they have planted
She makes a connection with Leona who gives her goldenrod to drink – Leona says that it will help her when she delivers the baby
Maricela could relate to Leona when she explained that the plants survive and will continue to grow and that she is also part of that system that has survived
“It hit me that this system was much older and stronger than the other”
The gardening experience changed her opinion of her unborn baby

Amir /

An Indian immigrant that manages a fabric store
He is growing eggplants, onions, carrots and cauliflowers
No one had spoken to him before the garden but now everyone approached to him
“But the garden’s greatest benefit was not relief to the eyes, but to make the eyes see our neighbors”
He with two other men ran after a robber and caught him
Royce is no longer a “scary black boy” – he works very well with his hands and helps people in the garden and in return people feed him, trust and like him
He becomes friends with an old Polish woman who is also growing corn but does not weed because it reminds her of the time she spent in concentration camps – she can’t choose to kill a plant because they would line people up and make two groups; “healthy people lived and others to die”
Royce and a Mexican man built a barbecue grill and they had a harvest festival where gardeners showed off what they had grown and traded food.
An Italian woman complimented his eggplants and told him how to cook them; he reminded her that awhile ago she had called him a “dirty foreigner” – she responded “Back then, I didn’t know it was you”

Florence /

African American woman whose great-grandparents were freed slave
Her family were the first African Americans to settle along the Gunnison River in Colorado
She thought that the people that started the garden were like her family – seedfolks
“My father called them seedfolks, because they were the first of our family there”
Retired librarian whose arthritis prevented her from planting in the garden
She enjoyed watching and was proud of the garden and how it changed the neighborhood
She felt protective of the garden too
She missed it during the long winter and wasn’t sure if anyone would plant again after the final snow in April
Kim was the first one out there with her plastic bag of lima beans