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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)

by Betty Smith

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
16,405440313 (4.31)1 / 927
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML:

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century.

From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and eccentric behaviorâ??such as her father Johnny's taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy's habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorceâ??no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans' life lacked drama.

By turns heartbreaking and uplifting, the Nolans' daily experiences are raw with honestly and tenderly threaded with family connectedness. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble Williamsburg lifeâ??from "junk day" on Saturdays, when the children traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Smith has created a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant moments of universal experience. Here is an American classic that "cuts right to the heart of life," hails the New York Times. "If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you will deny yourself a rich experien… (more)

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1940s (12)
AP Lit (187)
1970s (625)
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» See also 927 mentions

English (417)  Spanish (6)  Italian (4)  Chinese, traditional (4)  Catalan (2)  Greek (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Danish (1)  Norwegian (1)  French (1)  All languages (438)
Showing 1-5 of 417 (next | show all)
Francie’s story: a young impoverished girl growing up in Brooklyn at the start of the last century. Semi autobiographical novel, written in the 1940s. At once an historical document but also as fresh and pertinent as if it were written this morning. Francie pragmatically faces hardship and the tribulations of being female in a poverty-stricken district. Fantastic sense of time and place, with a likeable protagonist. ( )
  LARA335 | Mar 17, 2024 |
I read this when I was about 12 and enjoyed it, bu tthink I must have missed alot back then.
It is like adopting another whole faamily. She brings you co sompletely into their time and life, it is wrenching to finish the book.
If you've always wanted to live in turn of the century to World War I Brooklyn, here is your chance ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
As compelling a read as the first time I read it as a 13 year old girl half a century ago. Beautiful period piece that has stood up well through the passage of time. ( )
  bschweiger | Feb 4, 2024 |
Story of a family living in early 1900?s in Brooklyn in poverty conditions and they survived.
  bentstoker | Jan 26, 2024 |
i know this isn't a popular opinion, but this book is very much just okay for me. i thought maybe i'd like this better this time around, but i feel pretty much the same about it as the first time i read it over a decade ago. i really liked the first 70 or so pages. the next 50 were alright. the almost 250 after that a real slog where it felt like a collection of little stories she was trying to make work together as a whole; like she was stuffing together a bunch of vignettes that were supposed to be a cohesive story. and they fit together, but the writing was stiff and uninteresting and the stories themselves felt overdone. then it suddenly became more readable again, and i liked the last 75 or so pages.

"After Election, the politicians forgot their promises and enjoyed an earned rest until New Year, when they started work on the next Election."

i like her point, i like her message (except for some things toward the end that i wasn't totally on board with), i like the light she was shining on poverty and a way of life that was not supposed to be written about. it's just overly long and not the best book of its kind that tells this story. (1.5 stars)

from sept 2011: not particularly well written, but tells a clear picture of life in a certain time and place, for the poorer part of society. (2 stars) ( )
  overlycriticalelisa | Jan 22, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 417 (next | show all)

» Add other authors (29 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Smith, Bettyprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Burton, KateNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dillard, Anniesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fields, AnnaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hall, BarnabyCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kazin, AlfredAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pagani, DanielaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pietribiasi, AntonellaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Quindlen, AnnaForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stasolla, MarioIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly. . .survives without sun, water, and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.
Dedication
First words
Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York.
Quotations
Francie came away from her first chemistry lecture in a glow. In one hour she had found out that everything was made up of atoms which were in continual motion. She grasped the idea that nothing was ever lost or destroyed. Even if something was burned up or left to rot away, it did not disappear from the face of the earth; it changed into something else—gases, liquids, and powders. Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn’t adopt chemistry as a religion.
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.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML:

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century.

From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and eccentric behaviorâ??such as her father Johnny's taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy's habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorceâ??no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans' life lacked drama.

By turns heartbreaking and uplifting, the Nolans' daily experiences are raw with honestly and tenderly threaded with family connectedness. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble Williamsburg lifeâ??from "junk day" on Saturdays, when the children traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Smith has created a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant moments of universal experience. Here is an American classic that "cuts right to the heart of life," hails the New York Times. "If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you will deny yourself a rich experien

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Book description
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive.
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