A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
published
June 1st 2006 (first published 1943) by Harper Perennial Modern Classics
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binding
Paperback, 528 pages

isbn
0061120073   (isbn13: 9780061120077)

description
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brookly...more





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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 20623)



Jason
Jason rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
04/27/08

Read in April, 2008
a combination of charlotte bronte, charles dickens, and theodore dreiser...or any one of the american realists...
suffers a bit from the pauper syndrome, for some reason this affliction only effected books written from say 1800 to 1940...
also a variation on the ordeal novel...(see comments on dave egger's 'what is the what')...
around 200 pages in and francie is more of a figure of pain and sorrow than a character i feel i really know...she feels like a mop that smith is using to soak up all...more
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Beth
03/20/08

Read in March, 2008
I think my mom once said that this was her favorite book, and yet somehow I hadn’t read it until now. In my early teens, I remember coming across a paperback edition that had been lying around the house … and not making it past the first couple pages. The writing was way over my head (which had been addled by too much fluff reading of Baby-sitters Club, probably).

It’s probably for the best, though, for while this book centers around the young girl Francie Nolan, this coming-of-age st...more
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Julia
Julia rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
08/17/07

bookshelves: the-classics
Read in November, 2006
Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" has been passed down through at least three or four generations and is highly regarded as a classic novel perfect for any young adult bent on entering adulthood and escaping from the gaping clutches of a complicated childhood.
While it was not for those reasons that I first picked up "Brooklyn," I came to regard it as one of the finest books that I had ever read. At first glance, it is a very deceitful book: short; words spaced nicel...more
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  1 comments

Nian
Nian rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
07/01/08

Read in June, 2008
Quite an enjoyable book.

Loved:

1. The characters. My favorite was Francie, of course. We’re both avid readers.

2. The story about growing up and everything.

3. The messages about family, love, relationships, responsibility, being rich/poor, and etc.

Disliked:

1. The structure. This whole book is divided into parts titled Book One, Book Two, and so on. It started off with Francie being eleven years old, and into Book Two, it went back to Katie and Johnny’s era, where ...more
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Ebookwormy
Ebookwormy rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
05/25/08

bookshelves: 1-character-forming, carp-500
This is one of those books I wasn't sure I would like until I got all the way to the end. I came to love Francie Nolan early in the story and wanted so much for her to fulfill the promise to BE the heroine; which she does. That alone makes this a book to read and re-read. Francie's parents, Katie and Johnny Nolan are captivating and complex in that they each contain admirable traits as well as crippling faults.

Initial exposure to the crushing poverty in which Francie lives is disturbing, and...more
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Becky
Becky rated it: 3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars
07/28/08

bookshelves: children-and-ya
Read in July, 2008
recommends it for: kids and teens ages 10-17
I recently read this book for my monthly book group, after a lifetime of hearing the book referred to.

Overall, I liked it. It strikes me as being a very "old-fashioned" book, and I can't quite put my finger on why/how. It's not like reading Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, which sounds fresh and even contemporary, even though it's an older book. Tree seems entrenched in its time period, it seems like more of a historical artifact than a true "novel" with ...more
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Sarah
bookshelves: american-literature, book-club, classics, favorites
Read in March, 2008
recommends it for: everyone
Francie stood on tiptoe and stretched her arms wide. "Oh, I want to hold it all!" she cried. "I want to hold the way the night is - cold without wind. And the way the stars are so near and shiny. I want to hold all of it tight until it hollers out, 'Let me go! Let me go!'"

The title of this novel refers to a tree that grows persistently up through the concrete and harsh conditions of a poor tenement neighborhood in early 1900s Brooklyn. But it is also a metaphor for...more
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Kathy
Kathy rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
07/08/08

Read in January, 2006
OPENING LINE: "Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York."

I found a beautiful hardcover first printing of this book in a used bookstore in South Haven, Michigan. I remember that my writing mentor, Carol said this was a favorite book of hers, and I had wanted to read it since. I am almost done with this book, I love it. The opening introduces the most important symbol in the book, which is the tree referred to in the title. I believe the tree represents hope.

"Th...more
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Jing
11/13/07

bookshelves: advisory
Read in November, 2007
recommends it for: understands harship, proverty, family and values
The main protagonist of the book is Francie. She ages overtime and had experience many events that made her what she was in the end of the book. One of the events that changed her life was the family's proverty and eventaully her father death. She couldn't decide how she would go on in life without her father always helping the family out. The next thing was choosing between high school and a job. The family was poor, yet having a education could benefit the person later on in the future...more
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Alison
Alison rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
03/02/08

bookshelves: classics, rgbookclub
Read in March, 2008
recommends it for: book lovers, adolescent girls, anyone who feels defeated
I didn't think I was going to like this book. Not before I read it, but as I was reading it. Although the story was interesting and somewhat engaging, I thought the writing was a little one-dimensional, and honestly, a little flat. Some of the characters seemed to fit too neatly into their little boxes...the prim piano teacher, the penny-pinching butchers and shop-keepers, the tough but kind cops.

But, then as I got toward the end, and Francie began to work a real job and help support her...more
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Kelley
Kelley rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
09/17/08

recommends it for: girls 15 plus
Warning, contains spoilers.



My Dad's birthday is March 17. Once again, I found myself drawn to listening to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn again just before his birthday. It seems to be an emotional habit. Once again I am joined to my fictional kindred Francie Nolan. I am not like her in every way, but the parallels continue to astonish me. How did Betty Smith know?

Francie and Kelley:
Irish Catholic charming musical handsome daddy
Alcoholic daddy— mine had 3 DUIs
Dad who took temp work...more
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Dana
Dana rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
02/01/08

bookshelves: to-re-read
I remembering reading this book in--it was probably the fifth grade-- for Book-It, a program that encouraged reading in elementary schools by rewarding kids with Pizza Hut pan pizza. I was a fat kid and, like most kids, fat or otherwise, I liked pizza (it just so happened I could typically down a few more slices then the average adolescent). Thus, the affair with books and compulsion to collect as many stars on my Book-it pin as possible began.

I remember this book in particular as one of...more
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Melody
05/13/08

bookshelves: classics
Read in May, 2008
Reading this book was a little like watching an old Shirley Temple movie, with the person playing Shirley’s role a little less adorable – I was certainly entertained – but I was also taught many a lesson during the course of the story which was filled with more than a few clichés. The main lesson, of course is depicted by the tree –

“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 lot...more
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David
David rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
01/14/08

Read in December, 2007
recommended to David by: surfing amazons book store
recommends it for: those that like people
read this book apart form it being mentioned almost every were in .America and on countless variations plays , TV.series.(1974).. film but notably Will& Grace series.
were she takes apartment in Brooklyn and when will visits, she points out look will trees do actually grow in Brooklyn... to which he replays "the book must be true" as a sort of off comment...
Much of the book can be thought of as thinly disguised autobiography. Many of the characters derive from actual inhab...more
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Liza
Liza rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
09/17/07

Read in September, 2007
recommends it for: girls young and old
This was a great story about a girl, Francie growing up in early 20th century Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The story was very honest and surprisingly candid for the time. Francie's also honest about her aunt Sissy's wild side which showed that regardless of the time period, people haven't changed for a century., in

The story is told from Francie's point of view. She and her brother Neely live with their parents in a small apartment. The daily challenges of surviving are told so well that you f...more
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Julie
Julie rated it: 5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
09/02/08

Read in September, 2008
Love it. This was a birthday gift from Jen and I have to say thanks! Usually, when I hear that a book is a "classic" or worse, "a masterpiece," my gut response is to say "no thanks." It's probably because I had to read so many during high school and college that I got thoroughly sick of the "classics." (You may gain a greater understanding of something by dissecting it, but it still dies in the process.) Anyhow, I managed to get through to this part of...more
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Brian
Brian rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars
03/22/08

Read in March, 2008
recommended to Brian by: My wife and daughter
recommends it for: anyone
This was a really engrossing book that I had a hard time putting down. I started this book by listening to the unabridged version of it read on CD's by the actress Kate Burton. When I traveled to Los Angeles on business during the week of March 10, I brought along the CD's and as I drove all over Los Angeles (spending time in LA, Kent and Orange counties) I listened to the CD's. Then in the evenings, after taking care of all my email and voicemail messages, I read the book. It really helped ...more
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Michelle
Michelle rated it: 4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars