In the decades to follow and into the 20th century, many Black Southerners moving North in the Great Migration settled in Cleveland as well.

Because of the influx of immigrants, Cleveland’s population more than doubled between 18. It then became a destination for immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as Ireland. Cleveland, Ohio, made the leap from minor city to a major manufacturing hub during the American Civil War. Seedfolks draws on the American history of community gardens, but it also touches on Cleveland’s status as an immigrant destination and on the history of gardening more generally. Fleischman has two sons and a stepdaughter, and he lives in his hometown of Monterey, California, with his wife. Several of his other novels, including Seedfolks, have been adapted into plays. Like Joyful Noise, booth I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices and Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices are intended to be read out loud by multiple readers. This is one of several of Fleischman’s novels that reflects his love of music he’s said that as a child, he wanted to write music for orchestras rather than write books. He won the 1989 Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. Fleischman wrote his first novels while he was still in college, though it was the books he wrote in the 1980s that earned him major accolades.

He then went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of New Mexico. When Fleischman was 19, he bicycled cross-country and spent several years living in an 18th-century house in New Hampshire, an experience that influenced many of his historical fiction novels.

Both of Paul’s parents inspired Seedfolks: his father because he kept a hobby garden to take breaks from writing, and his mother because she volunteered in immigrant communities as well as community and therapeutic gardens. He’s the son of Sid Fleischman, who is also a renowned children’s author. Fleischman was born in Monterey, California.

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