Book Review: The Seed Keeper

The Seed Keeper

By Diane Wilson

Tags: Spring, Create Transition, Loss & Recovery, Rituals

Book Cover Summary:

A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most.

Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited.

On a winter’s day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband’s farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools.

Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.

Reinventurer's Review:

This book weaves real events in the lives of Dakota women into the fictional female protagonists life and ancestry of trauma. The author reveals the seeds of Rosalie Iron Wing's pain, inner struggles, ancestral and self-made character, along with the strength and power she wields to once again bloom by living her authentic life. This book captures the essence of all four steps of the reinventuring/transition process as Rosalie experiences Change/loss/Fall, Inertia/confusion/Winter, Creation/new beginnings/Spring, and finally Fruition/contentment/Summer.

Questions to Ponder and Discuss

The book talks about traditions followed by the Dakota men and women. What part do your family, cultural and environmental traditions play in your life today?

How does the metaphor of seeds relate to what is going on in your life right now?

What part does your environment play in your emotions and day to day interactions with family, friends, and colleagues? Do you feel a need to change or enhance that environment for your better good?

Rosalie and Gaby are both strong women who deal with the need for change in opposite ways. How do you deal with change in your life? Is it working? Is there possibly a better way to come at it?

Rosalie's past plays a huge role in how she deals with her current circumstances. In what ways does this happen in your life for good or bad?

Resources

The Dakota People https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/native-americans/dakota-people

The US Dakota War of 1862 https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/us-dakota-war

Seed Savers Exchange, stewards of Americaʼs culturally diverse and endangered garden and food crop https://www.seedsavers.org/