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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (P.S.) (Paperback)
by Betty Smith
| Category:
Teens Fiction Classic literature |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
MSL price:
¥ 168.00
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Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Named by the New York Public Library as "one of the books of the century," A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan; 50 years passed since it's first published, book's humor and pathos still ensured its place in the realm of classics, and remains in the hearts of readers, young and old. |
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Author: Betty Smith
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Pub. in: May, 2006
ISBN: 0061120073
Pages: 528
Measurements: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00349
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0061120077
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- Awards & Credential -
Originally published in 1943, this true American classic has sold millions of copies worldwide, and includes a foreword by Anna Quindlen.
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- MSL Picks -
Francie Nolan is a character who will long be remembered by anyone who reads A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Bright but lonely, poor but resourceful, Francie Nolan is captured from ages 11 to 16 with poignancy and love. Francie is her daddy's "prima donna" and she treasures his love while fighting to win her mother's. Although she never achieves the place in her mother's heart that her brother holds, her strength and sheer perserverance guide her through difficult times. Like the sturdy tree that grows outside her window and survives all catastrophes, Francie Nolan survives poverty, lack of formal education, sexual assault, extreme loneliness, and lost love.
The reader first meets Francie at age 11 when, as an inquisitive young girl, her favorite time of the day is on Saturday when she can go to the library then rush home with her treasure and read the afternoon away on the fire escape of her Brooklyn tenement. As a young girl, she feels "rich" when she receives bits of chalk and stubby pencils her mother and father bring home from their janitoring job at a local school. She finds simple pleasures in her life, like being allowed to sleep in the front room on Saturday night and watch the busy street below. You will ache to go back in time and be Francie's best friend as she battles loneliness and rejection by her peers but learns to live a solitary life. But, like the tree, she is ready to burst into bloom and when she does it is beautiful to read about.
This book is a wonderful description of life in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn and a strong statement on the hope offered to the immigrants who came to the United States. The story emphasizes quite clearly the value of reading and a good education, but most importantly the strength of family and the dreams that sustain people. As Francie learns, "there had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it flashing glory." Young teens and mature women alike will relish Francie's story and hold its message in their hearts forever.
(Quoting from Antoinette Klein, USA)
Target readers:
Teens, Young adults.
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Betty Smith was born Elisabeth Wehner on December 15, 1896, the same date as, although five years earlier than, her fictional heroine Francie Nolan. The daughter of German immigrants, she grew up poor in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the very world she recreates with such meticulous detail in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Smith also wrote other novels and had a long career as a dramatist, writing one-act and full-length plays for which she received both the Rockefeller Fellowship and the Dramatists Guild Fellowship. She died in 1972.
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From The Publisher
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.
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Walter Sobchak (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
Of all the books I have ever read, Betty Smith has somehow jammed more "life" into A Tree Grows in Brooklyn than any other novel my eyes have scrolled across. And that, my fellow readers, is a tremendous accomplishment. This book came highly recommended to me by some reliable sources, so I bought the book without even knowing what it was about. When I found out it was a coming of age novel about a young girl, I almost didn't even bother to start it. Smith's timeless novel (with some of the most touching scenes I've ever read) struck my closemindedness a fatal blow. This book IS family life. Smith allows one to see the world through each character's eyes. Let me also add that the final quote made by Francie on the last page is something that every single living person can relate to. I haven't come across too many books that offer its readers so many gifts...
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Megan Cremer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
Betty Smith is well knows for her many works, but the one book that almost everyone knows about, that she wrote is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In this book she shows herself to be an author of great depth and knowledge into the human soul. All her words come strait from the heart to make a book that engulfs all who read it.
This book gives great insight into life; it shows why many people strive to become someone better and how some people are able to craw up to a better station in live against tremendous odds as well as forces working against them. A tree Grows in Brooklyn touches every ones hearts.
It is about a little girl, Mary Frances Nolan (also known as Francie), growing up in the poorer part of Brooklyn with a drunken, singing waiter for a father, yet this father somehow always make her feel so special and unique. She lives with her father, a severely realistic mother, and a brother who is always favored. She is treated poorly throughout school because she is so different and independent. Even at birth she was thought of as "different"; Francie was born with a caul which was supposed to indicate that the child was set apart to do great things in the world. Francie always kept to herself and was the silent studious type. In fast she entertained herself with books from the local library; she promised herself that one day read all the books in the library, she started this goal by reading a book-a-day. Her brother's birth, not one year after hers, doesn't help this division at all; she feels even more disconnected and different from the rest of the world at Neeley birth, fore he is the favored son and get all the attention that Francie lacked growing up. At a very young age Francie learned how important money is as well as the division is society caused by money and education. Because of this division and favoritism, Francie becomes the sole provider for the family after the death of her father. She goes to work straight after graduation from grade school and never gets to have the pleasure and luxury of a high school diploma, but that doesn't stop her from her dreams. Her dreams of moving up in the world, to a place were you don't have to worry about where your next meal comes from.
True, this sounds like a ridicules dream considering that today this is a requirement from everyone, but at this point in time very few people, without wealth, were able to get a higher education or even be able to go to high school. Nothing can stop Francie from getting her dream. This wonderful book cuts right to the heart of life. It show the true American dream; the dream of higher education and a better live for everyone. If you don't read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will be denying yourself a rich experience of the true American dream. A dream that has made this country what it is today.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
This is a novel to be read and enjoyed for many different reasons. As an initial matter, it paints a portrait of Brooklyn at the turn of the twentieth century. Many books contain descriptions, but this book contains something more. I could hear the chaos on the streets, including the noisy children, horses and vendors. I could smell and taste the coffee that Francie's mother left boiling on the stove at all hours of the day and night. It went beyond mere description--this novel involved all of my senses and made me truly feel what it was like to live in that time and place.
Beyond the amazing imagery is a somewhat simple story of a family in crisis. Johnny, the father, drinks too much and can't hold a job but is the light and life of the family. Katie, the mother, loves her family ferociously, but has been imbittered by the strain that Johnny and their perpetual state of poverty places upon her. The story truly belongs to Francie and Neely, the two children, who survive by staying together, inventing stories and games for each other, and finding joy in their meager surroundings.
The most noteworthy aspect of the novel, to me, was its utter anger. I have heard Steinbeck's Travels with Charley described as "an angry book". A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was much angrier. Francie's childlike but astute observations concerning how society ignores the needs and struggles of the working poor explode with anger. Francie's shining moment is when she shames the doctor who comments in front of her that all poor people are dirty, without thinking that she and her brother can understand him. Sissy's shining moment is when she shames Francie's teacher who ignores poor children to the point that she fails to release them to use the bathroom, causing them to have humiliating accidents. Even Francie's and Neely's victories contain an undercurrent of anger. They catch the leftover Christmas tree, warming the heart of the peddler who threw it. But because he is poor, he cannot openly be happy for them, and has to throw curses after them as they parade home with their prize.
This book contains magic and heartbreak, heroics and cowardice, beauty and hideousness. It describes what it was like to be a poor child in Brooklyn in 1908. Above all, it reminds us that poverty and human behavior is universal. Shamefully, children and adults are still going through what Francie and her family went through 100 years ago.
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Busy Mom (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
In the first page of this book, Betty Smith writes very gently and calmly of Francie Nolan, a pre-teenager just beginning to step out on the edge of adulthood. And Smith ties the book up neatly at the end as if she's giving a present to the reader ... which she is. This is one of the sweetest, most eloquently written books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
Francie Nolan lives in Brooklyn with her brother Neely, mom Katie and dad Johnny. It is in the early 1900s where the book is set. The family is poor ~~ living almost on the edge of starvation. Francie has taken to reading like a duck takes to water ... once she discovered the joy of reading, she becomes a big bookworm. She is also a keen observer of life around her ~~ her thoughts are often witty and funny as she observes the strange behavior of her mother's sisters and their lives, the neighbors, her brother Neely, her mother and father's relationships with one another. Till Francie grows up to be this amazing woman set on the path of her destiny.
Betty Smith takes you along for a wonderful story-filled walk in Brooklyn in the early 20th century. She introduces the smells of old Brooklyn, the noise, the joys and sorrows of being in a poverty-stricken family ~~ the hopes and dreams of the immigrants that left the old country because there was nothing there for them. The hopes and dreams of the parents for their children to have better lives than they did ... falling in love with one another ... the disappointments of being disappointed by life, the wonder of finding joy in anything new or rediscovering something old. Betty Smith has captured the nuances of life and shares a bit of her soul for us readers to find.
What I like most about this book is how much I can relate to Francie and her reading habits and her growing up years. She is full of insecurities and questions, loves to read and takes such joy in reading ... especially when she promised herself that she was going to read every book in the local library, starting from a to z. And Smith captures that longing perfectly, as if she has had the same dreams and desires when she was 11.
I can rave about this book forever, but it isn't as much fun as reading this book. This book deserves to be read by everyone who has such joy in reading. This book deserves to be given to young girls on the verge of adulthood and encouraged to be read ... discussed. The love of reading is what all of us here have in common, and reading about it just encourages you to read more!
I urge you to buy this book and read it. It's worth every minute and hour of your time. It's one of those rare treasures that won't leave you without leaving a small imprint on your heart. I can guarantee you will fall in love with Francie and her family ... they're just like every other family you know. Just different ... Francie is one character you love to love. Just like I love to read. Don't delay ... buy!
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