Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Set in the 2020s where society has largely collapsed due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Parable of the Sower centers on a young woman named Lauren Oya Olamina who possesses what Butler dubbed hyperempathy or "sharing" – the ability to feel pain and other sensations she witnesses. As a teenager growing up in the remnants of a gated community near Los Angeles, she begins to develop a new belief system, which she comes to call Earthseed. When the community's security is compromised, her home is destroyed and her family is murdered, and she travels north with other survivors. Society outside the community walls has reverted to chaos due to resource scarcity and poverty, and mixed race relationships are stigmatized amid attacks against religious and ethnic minorities. Lauren believes that humankind's destiny is to travel beyond Earth and live on other planets, forcing humankind into its adulthood, and that Earthseed is preparation for this destiny. She gathers followers along her journey north and founds the first Earthseed community, Acorn, in Northern California.
Students can check out this book from Boston Public Library over the summer. We will have some copies available before the end of the school year here at Boston Arts Academy. For students who like to read in a digital format, please come see Ms. D in the library to discuss possibilities. We will be posting a link to the digital audiobook as soon as we have it.
If students or parents have any questions about the book, the assignment, or anything else related to summer reading, please ask your Seminar teacher.
Thank you!
This is such a good series! I've been meaning to read them for a while now, but just hadn't gotten around to it. I can't believe I've never read them before. I'm in love. I want more, but this is all she wrote in this set. Sower was published in 1993, but I'm convinced that Octavia Butler saw glimpses of the future. This future, dystopian, America that her main character, Lauren, lives in could easily happen under the right (or wrong!) circumstances. Some of the scenes are very uncomfortable to read, since Lauren's world is not a safe one. However, I highly recommend them both.
When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister's young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny... and the birth of a new faith.