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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
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The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.
Recommended by
""The Good Earth," "A Girl of the Limberlost," "The Secret Garden," "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.""
"I realized the film is the story of a girl who wants to be a writer. I read the book by Betty Smith soon after, and I've loved it ever since."
"Yes, and it’s completely different. It’s about an Irish-American family living in Brooklyn at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s a poor family: the father is an alcoholic and never really works, and the mother works every hour there is. It’s about all the different things that happen to the family, the ups and downs—but mostly downs, as it gets worse and worse. Again it’s slightly heavy-handed symbolism, but the tree in the book is a tree of heaven, which is a tree that’s seen as invasive. It’s also an immigrant; it’s also scrabbling to survive. People are always trying to get rid of it: they chop it down and they pull it up, yet from the chopped-down tree springs a new tree. They never can seem to get rid of it and it grows in the courtyard of the tenements where the family lives. At the end, the family falls apart and yet still survives, just as the tree continues to grow. One of the reasons I put it on the list is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is such a great title. It’s the best tree title ever."