Scan barcode
abloom's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Alcoholism, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Racism
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Suicide
r_dolan's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, Child abuse, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Suicide and Addiction
Minor: Abandonment, Sexual assault, and Rape
chelseylb1988's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Death of parent, and Grief
Moderate: Animal death
annemaries_shelves's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was an absolutely beautiful novel of a Dakota woman through her life who, as a young teen, was stolen from her community in the 70s after her father died and put into foster care. She ended up marrying a white farmer, having a son, and making something of a life for herself for a while. Until her husband dies (at the beginning of the novel) and she finally returns home to the cabin she was raised in, only to rediscover the community she still has.
There's so much to unpack in this novel about specific Dakota experiences (such as the Minnesota-Dakota war of 1862), intergenerational trauma, the importance of family and community, the reciprocal relationships with the land and water (and how modern day colonial farming practices are actively harming those relationships), and most importantly, the literal and metaphorical importance of seeds.
And while I'm sure it wasn't the goal of the author, I personally learned a lot about Dakota history and colonization in Minnesota, especially with respect to the role seeds have played in historical and contemporary Dakota culture.
While Rosalie was our main character and provided the majority of the perspective for the novel, we did spend some time (but not enough) with a few other women. I would have loved some additional chapters with Marie Blackbird or Gaby Makepeace. I felt they had a lot to offer the story and could have rounded it out even further. Some POVs from Rosalie's family (especially her mother or grandmother) would have also worked well.
My favourite part is probably the absolutely stunning nature writing that was woven throughout this novel. If you're a fan of Braiding Sweetgrass or other nature writing I think you'll love this aspect.
Overall, The Seed Keeper was a beautiful story with memorable characters with a strong message of strength, resilience, and hope. It was an absolutely pleasure to read and I made a lot of annotations of various passages and scenes that stuck with me.
It also didn't hurt that it was partially set in the deep Minnesotan winter and I could relate while reading with my current frigid snowy Canadian winter.
There's so much to unpack in this novel about specific Dakota experiences (such as the Minnesota-Dakota war of 1862), intergenerational trauma, the importance of family and community, the reciprocal relationships with the land and water (and how modern day colonial farming practices are actively harming those relationships), and most importantly, the literal and metaphorical importance of seeds.
And while I'm sure it wasn't the goal of the author, I personally learned a lot about Dakota history and colonization in Minnesota, especially with respect to the role seeds have played in historical and contemporary Dakota culture.
While Rosalie was our main character and provided the majority of the perspective for the novel, we did spend some time (but not enough) with a few other women. I would have loved some additional chapters with Marie Blackbird or Gaby Makepeace. I felt they had a lot to offer the story and could have rounded it out even further. Some POVs from Rosalie's family (especially her mother or grandmother) would have also worked well.
My favourite part is probably the absolutely stunning nature writing that was woven throughout this novel. If you're a fan of Braiding Sweetgrass or other nature writing I think you'll love this aspect.
Overall, The Seed Keeper was a beautiful story with memorable characters with a strong message of strength, resilience, and hope. It was an absolutely pleasure to read and I made a lot of annotations of various passages and scenes that stuck with me.
It also didn't hurt that it was partially set in the deep Minnesotan winter and I could relate while reading with my current frigid snowy Canadian winter.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death of parent, Alcoholism, Colonisation, Racial slurs, and Racism
Minor: War, Suicide, Sexual violence, Addiction, and Forced institutionalization
emzireads's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
- Strong character development? Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Colonisation, and Death of parent
bedtimesandbooks's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Child abuse, Rape, Racism, Racial slurs, Cultural appropriation, Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Colonisation, Death of parent, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Sexual assault, and Suicide
anishinaabekwereads's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
“I studied the patience of the red oak so perfectly formed over many years, as she endured the cold. In the fall, she prepared by pulling the energy of sunlight belowground, to be stored in her roots, much as I preserved the harvest from my garden. Through a season that seems too cold for anything to survive, the tree simply waits, still growing inside, and dreams of spring. Without fully understanding yet why I had come back, I began to think it was for this, for the slow return of a language I once knew. The language of this place.”
Diane Wilson’s The Seed Keeper is honestly one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. Filled with loving descriptions of prairie lands, of woods, of rivers, of gardens growing in a midwestern summer, I felt the call of that landscape. I could envision the heat, the power of storms, the coldness of a winter in what is now that state of Minnesota. I need to say from the outset, that I am not Dakhota. The history in this book is not my history. Even histories of boarding schools vary between Dakhota and Ojibwe people because we were not exiled from our homes. Still, this book felt like a call to those parts of me that still need to heal from trauma inflicted through colonialism. I love this book with my whole heart.
Following a nonlinear (though sometimes quite linear) timeline, we follow Roaslie Iron Wing, a Dakhota woman who is reeling from compounded loss. She was taken from her family and community as a child, raised in a foster home where she felt alone and unwanted, left to fend for herself and find a way to survive a world that holds onto anti-Indigenous hostility. Important to this story is how her family survived the US-Dakhota War of 1862 and boarding schools, though not without the scars of intergenerational trauma.
We see Rosalie return home to her family’s land and we watch as she rebuilds connections to a family she didn’t know had sought her out for years and to a community she didn’t feel she belonged to. This story is also about rebuilding and protecting Dakhota connections to lands, to trees, waters, and plants. It’s a novel about coming home, about healing even if the path isn’t entirely clear.
The most stunning parts of this novel demonstrate the intimacy and love Dakhota women have with seeds that sustain their families and Dakhota culture. Wilson beautifully demonstrates how important seeds are to everything else, how caring for seeds and the earth they grow in is a practiced act of survival for Indigenous peoples as evidenced through the protection of such seeds themselves.
I was at a talk Wilson gave a couple of years ago and she talked about this book, about how there were these stories of Dakhota women carrying their seeds with them to Fort Snelling where they were incarcerated after the US-Dakhota War and to Crow Creek and Santee after Dakhota people were legally and physically exiled from their homelands. She talked about how Dakhota women would sew seeds into the hems of their skirts. It was at that moment I knew this book was going to be such an essential literary contribution. Dakhota history is not easy and Wilson reminds of this consistently, but there is strength and beauty and love in Dakhota survival.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Cancer, Grief, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, and Drug abuse
Minor: Rape
More...