Reviews with content warning for Grief - The Seed Keeper

This is one of the best literary fiction novels I’ve read in a long time. I think what resonated with me about this one, is that there was something comforting, familiar, and relatable about the way Rosalie’s surroundings are portrayed, with the setting described so similar to the environment I know. The most memorable moment for me came during Marie Blackbird’s (one of Rosalie’s ancestors) reflections on sandhill cranes:

“It was that sound that got to me, as if he had called up the past in a circle around us. Like he was telling me that he had always been here, would always be here, despite the fences, the cutting down of trees, the wooden brick buildings that were springing up across the land.”

I read this chapter just as the sandhill cranes were migrating across Edmonton (which for those of you don’t know, have an extremely loud and noticeable call) and this was such a special moment for me, and made me feel tied to the story, to her world.

I loved that there is a strong thread of environmental justice weaves through the book, that encourages the reader to make connections between our actions and its ramifications on people and planet across time. I also appreciated how scenes of belonging and alienation contrasted in a way that welcomed the reader into Rosalie’s world, and felt very relatable to me. While she comes across shy and silent; her actions misunderstood, but her internal thread so strong and direct. It is a privilege to see her rich inner life. This is one of the most stunning, immersive and heart wrenching books I’ve read in a long time and will stick with me for years to come.

Pick up this book if you:

Enjoy multilayered and non-linear timelines
Want to learn more about Dahkóta history, ways of knowing and continued impacts of settler colonialism
Are looking for a book where the setting is a main character

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annemaries_shelves's review

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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.

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

4.75

I absolutely loved The Seed Keeper, a female-centred, multi-generational novel exposing the obstacles indigenous people (in this case Dakhóta but much will be more universal) have faced in trying to maintain their culture, specifically practices relating to the saving and usage of seeds. Many of these obstacles are well-known - wars with white colonisers, residential schools, harmful foster care systems and, sadly, so much more. But other factors, possibly less commonly thought of, have been equally as harmful and have had widespread negative environmental impacts as well. These factors include chemical fertilisers, genetically-modified seeds and the industrialisation and commercialisation of agriculture.

Things that especially resonated with me were the importance of the past and of ties to the land. I also appreciated seeing a nuanced depiction of a cross-cultural marriage and the tensions that can arise. I always love stories about strong women and this book certainly delivered. It’s beautifully written, multi-layered, sometimes heartbreaking, yet never without hope. It also folded in a lot of factual information and left me with plenty to think about. And it left me with a renewed appreciation for the miracle that is a seed.

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bedtimesandbooks's review

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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

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bookishcori's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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anishinaabekwereads's review

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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.

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