A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

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 the often harsh life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior―such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce―no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences in this classic novel are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , captured the joys of humble Williamsburg life-from "junk day" on Saturdays, when the children of Francie’s neighborhood traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Betty Smith has artfully caught this sense of exciting life in a poignant work of historical fiction, a novel of childhood replete with incredibly rich moments of universal experiences―a truly remarkable achievement for any writer. This enduring portrait of a bygone Brooklyn is a story of survival, resilience, and the quiet moments that define a life. “A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life. . . . If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience.” - New York Times “One of the books of the century.” - New York Public Library “Betty Smith was a born storyteller.” - USA Today “ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn deserves to be thought of as one of the greatest American novels.” - The New Yorker “One of the most cherished of American novels….It is the Dickensian novel of New York that we didn’t think we had.” - New York Times “A poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships....[Smith’s] book has light and air in it, comedy and pathos, and an underlying rhythm pulsing to the surge and flow of humanity itself. No matter what happens to the Nolans, they never lose their awareness of the sweetness and wonder of life.” - Orville Prescott, New York Times "The quintessential New York immigrant novel, which underscored the power of education." - Min Jin Lee, The New York Times A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the coming-of-age story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the turn-of-the-century Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn. This poignant and moving classic of American literature is filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and incident. Betty Smith (1896–1972) was a native of Brooklyn, New York. Her novels A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , Tomorrow Will Be Better , Joy in the Morning , and Maggie-Now continue to capture the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers worldwide. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn LP By Smith, Betty HarperLargePrint ISBN: 0060745940 Chapter One Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer. Late in the afternoon the sun slanted down into the mossy yard belonging to Francie Nolan's house, and warmed the worn wooden fence. Looking at the shafted sun, Francie had that same fine feeling that came when she recalled the poem they recited in school. This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld. The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts. You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone's yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district. The tree knew. It came there first. Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up into flats, feather beds were pushed out on the window sills to air and the Tree of Heaven flourished. That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poo