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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)
atimco: Both stories are semi-autobiographical and tell the story of a young, sensitive girl coming of age in a poor community. The heroines have similar family structures (attractive, hardworking mother, generally absent/weak father, younger brother who fits into his surroundings better than his older sister). The historical setting is very important to both works and almost acts as a character in its own right.… (more)
RidgewayGirl: Set in 1939, The Tin Flute is also a beautifully told coming of age story, this time of a young, working class French-Canadian girl in Quebec.
iMagic: My all time favorite book. A must read. Ruth McBride was a force to be reckoned with. Raised 12 phenomenal children. One of them wrote this book about her life as the daughter of an orthodox Jewish rabbi who later married the man who taught her how to live.
Among the most fervent and outspoken of coming-of-age novels in American literature that I've read, full to the brim with life sketches as pictorial as David Copperfield and with an epic scope as sweeping as East of Eden. Betty Smith invites us into a breathtaking depiction of New York with the same richness that Woody Allen's Manhattan did for the big screen, visualized from the perspective of an aspiring and headstrong Francie Nolan raised in the heart of poverty-stricken Brooklyn. This novel expresses a hope for American immigrants at the turn of the century that isn't to be found in Upton Sinclair's the Jungle, and although Francie's relatives are far from perfect, their love and care for each other is irrefutable and irrepressible. Francie is met with experiences and choices that are as various and unique as any uncommon family, and their stories are forever memorable as the small things that are best in a simple life. ( )
Although this is a piece of fiction, the postscript makes it clear that it is based in the author's own childhood and was written as such. It is therefore very easy to imagine the type of life Smith had growing up in what we would today consider abject poverty but with the love and support of her family. It is astounding, really, the resilience but also the innocence of the time, marked by hard work, precarious conditions and community. It's a wonderful coming of age story but also testimony of the time which was as changing as it is today. ( )
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. ( )
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 ( )
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. ( )
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.
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
▾Library descriptions
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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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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Group Read (August 1, 2012)
Wikipedia in English (1)
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