“[Francie] was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved deeply. She was Katie’s secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk. She was all of these things and of something more…It was something that had been born into her and her only – the something different from anyone else…It was what God or...

During my adolescent years a short run program on television was Brooklyn Bridge, a show about life in Brooklyn during the 1950s. The last line of the show's theme song was "that place just over the Brooklyn Bridge" will always be home to me. When I think of Brooklyn, my mind goes back to a more wholesome time when city children could stay out late and parents did not have to worry about their well being, where children frequented the penny candy store and rode on paper routes after school. This...

Some books give young girls dreams of ponies, kittens, and visions of eternal love. This book is not one of them.If I were to make a metaphor, this book would be the equivalent of the ice bucket challenge. It offers no platitudes, it is harsh, realistic. It slaps you in the face with reality, a reality that is very rarely pleasant.And it is also one of the best young adult books I have ever read.I first read this book as a young teen, perhaps when I was 13 or 14. The main lesson I learned from i...

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a quiet, gentle, understated and yet at the same time unexpectedly scathing at times book that offers a window (or a view from a fire escape, if you please) into a little corner of the world a century ago, and yet still has the power to resonate with readers of today. After all, the world has moved forward, yes, but the essential human soul remains the same, and the obstacles in human lives - poverty, inequality, cruelty, and blind self-righteousness - are in no dange...

Well, the tree grows very slowly and with exhaustive detail.Couldn't get through this one. Actually, that's not entirely true. I could have. And I don't mean that in the way of a mountain climber who just couldn't make it to the top and then warps reality by looking back at it. No, it's more like "couldn't" as in "I couldn't eat another hashbrown from my McDonald's breakfast." Sure, I COULD have. It just didn't seem worth the pain.I get why this book is a classic, I think. My brother and I argue...

I had heard of this book quite frequently, but for some reason or another never picked it up. Then years ago, my book club decided to read it. What a Joy! What a Pleasure! I loved reading about this young girl who loved to read as much as I did. How I could relate to her love of going to the library and finding that special book - that treasure! Thus, this book became my treasure. It holds a place on my favorite book list!Francie Nolan is a very poor young girl living in the slums of Williamsbur...

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first time or last time: Then your time on earth will be filed with glory.” A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ~~ Betty SmithThis is one of the best books I have ever read. It is an amazing piece of fiction & one of those books that stays with you long after you've read it. This was Betty Smith’s first novel and it is an American classic; it was an immediate bestseller when it was published in 1943. Smith drew from her own experience gr...

"Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well-dressed. Let me be sincere- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.""Don't say that. It's not better to die. W...

{Yup, I'm reading it AGAIN.}I sob, and I mean sob, every time I read this book. It's such a simple story--Francie Nolan is a smart little girl who's trying to find beauty in her sometimes ugly, always poverty-stricken life. Her adored father is wonderful, but too plagued by his own demons to support his family. Her mother loves her children fiercely but is often harsh because she thinks it's her job to keep them grounded in reality (oh, and she seems to love Francie's brother more). Her aunt is ...