The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

“History might have cost me my family and my language, but I was reclaiming a relationship with the earth, water, stars, and seeds that was thousands of years old.”

-

The Seed Keeper Book Review

I ADORE this book.

The Seed Keeper explores so many different aspects of life and relationships, while painting a clear picture of the way colonial legacies still structure our world. 

The Seed Keeper is a novel that brings you through the full-life story of Rosalie Iron Wing, an Indigenous woman who was forced into the child welfare system as a child after the death of her father. They had lived together in a small cabin in the woods, until she was taken from her home and placed in foster care in the city. The story continues through her life of decisions while connecting the reader to her ancestral past and coming to several full-circle moments.

The way we interact with nature, each other, and our own history needs to change. This is a novel that keeps you engaged in the story, gives you a well-developed and authentic character with so many layers to unravel, and also dives into historical fiction with ancestral threads woven into the past. We begin and end with Rosalie, but the women in her family are also given a voice.

The way you look at a seed will be forever changed.

If you are looking for a book that challenges you, inspires you, and has you in tears at 2am...this is it. 

Reading Journal Questions

• How far back can you trace your own ancestry? What does that mean to you? What traditions have you kept?

• How does this novel explore the grey areas between good and evil?

• Were there any points in reading this novel that changed your perception of an issue?

• What quotes struck you?

• How do the lives of the Iron Wing women represent a matriarchal system?