Seedfolks

Today for Children's Lit. class we are supposed to discuss our last book of the semester, Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman. I was going to read it yesterday so I wouldn't be so busy today, but I couldn't find it. I roamed my bookshelf (with my eyes, of course) and counted up nine of the ten children's books we had to buy for the class, but I just couldn't find the last book. So today after my first class I finally consulted my syllabus to find out what it was called and that triggered my brain to recall that it was a small chapter book, not a picture book like most of the others for class. I went and found the book and read it through before Children's Lit. At first glance at the front cover I thought it was going to be an uninteresting book. Boy, was I wrong! If I'd been reading fast I probably could have gotten through the 87-paged book in about half an hour or so. But it actually took me almost two hours to read because I kept stopping and re-reading words, sentences, paragraphs, and sometimes even entire chapters. I was amazed at the writing. It's exactly the type of book I long to write and I was astounded by the emotion and weight carried by the words the author chose. In addition, the brevity of his words astonished me. How he could get those thoughts and feelings across, how he told the reader so much about each character in just one chapter - just a few pages really - was truly astonishing. Seedfolks is definitely one of my new favourite books (and yes I know I say that a lot, but it's really true this time). Especially when I got to the end and found 14 more pages to read, an author's note by Paul Fleischman telling how he got the idea for the story and how he worked to write the characters and the book. I've been inspired, once again, by the children's authors I've been exposed to during this semester while reading 100 children's books for Children's Lit. class.