From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: April 30, 2020

Discussion: CLASSICS READS

Why we're reading this: Group Pick for April ‘20 - Classics
[close] Group Pick for April ‘20 - Classics

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CLASSICS READS

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What Members Thought

Apr 21, 2023 Amber Lea rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, books-i-highly-recommend, literature-and-classics

I was worried I was going to find this book horribly boring, but I loved it.

9 likes · Like · see review

Mar 24, 2023 Beth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 52-books-challenge-2023

For years I had thought of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as a book of my mother’s generation (she was in her 20s when it was published), popular at one time but now largely forgotten like so many best sellers of the past. I read it as a girl, on her recommendation, but couldn’t recall a thing about it other than a vaguely pleasant feeling. Then I kept seeing people referring to it as their favorite “classic” and a “must read.” So I decided what the heck, I’ll revisit it. I’m glad I did. Is it a “lite For years I had thought of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as a book of my mother’s generation (she was in her 20s when it was published), popular at one time but now largely forgotten like so many best sellers of the past. I read it as a girl, on her recommendation, but couldn’t recall a thing about it other than a vaguely pleasant feeling. Then I kept seeing people referring to it as their favorite “classic” and a “must read.” So I decided what the heck, I’ll revisit it. I’m glad I did. Is it a “literary” classic? Published in 1942, it’s hardly a book of high modernism, though I suppose it has *some* modernist traits. I’ll spare you the lecture. Possibly a classic of children’s or YA literature, as it follows its protagonist from ages eleven to seventeen (with some flashbacks)--but not really. I read it in my early teens, I think, and I wasn’t ready to appreciate it.

What is it then? A coming of age story, female Bildungsroman perhaps, possibly even a Künstlerroman (a writer’s coming of age). It’s only lightly plotted, featuring a series of incidents, some, indeed, dramatic--bigamy, attempted rape, childbirth. On the other hand, if a plot entails following how a character copes with their problem(s), the book has a clear plot: protagonist Francie Nolan, imaginative, solitary and frequently hungry and cold, lives in extreme poverty, with her much-loved, charming, but alcoholic father and her mother who struggles to make ends meet with janitor work, odd jobs, and stretching the family resources. The book follows the family’s struggles get by and Francie’s efforts to educate herself, even after she must leave school to help support the family. The title refers to a tree that manages to thrive in hard baked soil behind the Nolan’s tenement building: “it’s strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong.”

Clearly autobiographical, the book does a remarkable job of depicting life in the 1910s in an impoverished neighborhood populated mostly by recent immigrants—Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews--and their children. A cultural historian would do well to study it.

The book sometimes becomes mildly didactic in its commentary about class snobbery, unimaginative teachers, and other exploitive adults; it surprised me a bit with its frankness about sexuality and its understanding of addiction, which were not quite what I expected of a best seller of the 1940s. But it’s only a little didactic. Overall, it has a gentle touch—charming, occasionally humorous, and frequently touching. ...more

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Jan 19, 2014 Franzi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, own

Come back to me, Francie!
Ahh...it hurts to finish this book. I'm pretty sure that I won't be reading a better book in 2014. This book just turned me inside out... Francie might be my alltime favorite protagonist.

This book is a coming of age story starting in Brooklyn, around 1910. It's beautiful and tragic and unfair and magical and full of mysery and love and just everything, like life itself.

Read this book, seriously! Read it! If I recommend a book that would fit for anyone, it's this. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 18, 2019 Djrmel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook, fiction, historical-fiction, classic, literary-fiction

Amazing.

Split between reading and listening. The audiobook narrator’s voice was perfect. I’ve seen criticism that she does stereotypical accents, but I don’t think that’s the case. The voices of most of the characters evolve thru the story, not only in the written but also spoken versions. I could have done without the instrumental sequester, though.

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Nov 17, 2020 Shelley Shoemaker rated it it was amazing

A story of beauty, loss, resilience and hope, and of never ending optimism in the darkest of moments. The importance of family and commitment abounds throughout this old-fashioned tale of joys and sorrows. Truly beautiful!

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