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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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CC- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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Just finished this a couple of weeks ago, can't wait to read people's thoughts on it.
I borrowed an old hardback copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library while I was waiting on mine to arrive from paperback swap. It has an author's note before the book begins that my paperback version does not have. I found it digitally and thought I would share...I enjoyed reading it.http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=KLK...
(crossing my fingers the link works)
I love this book, I wrote my college admissions essay on it. I will defiantly be joining in on this book discussion!
Excited for this discussion. I read this book a few years back, but I remember it very well. It launched me back into reading after taking a long break from it.
I'm happy to say that my reading schedule and Chicks on Lit have finally intersected, and I will be able to participate in this discussion. This book is a treasure.@Collin -- thank you for that wonderful link to Betty Smith's comments for the special edition. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks Francie's story is my own...
This book had a huge impact on me when I was very young. Have reread it and it stands the test of time. Will read again for this discussion.
Thanks for sharing Collin, I will be checking this out this weekend.
This is a book I bought when I lived in Brooklyn several years ago, but I've never gotten around to reading it. Really excited to read it with this group!
Off to great start with this the writing is great.
I felt drawn into her character from the very beginning.
I started this tonight, I hope it's as good as the reviews make it out to be!
I have the movie, too.
I didn't know there was a movie!
As far as I can tell, there has only been one movie made based on this novel...http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038190/
I think it would make a great mini-series with the right cast and director.
I bought this as an audio book a few months back and really enjoyed it. Hope you all do as well.
Chris wrote: "I didn't know there was a movie!"My in person book group read A Tree Griws in Brooklyn and then I passed around the movie!
Yay! Ok, I will plan on it, disregard last post in the other thread. Excited!
Glad you are going to join us, Autumn. Nancy, I'll have to check it out when I am done. I can't watch a movie until I finish the book.
I listened to the audiobook last fall and wondered how in the world I've missed it before! This will be a fun discussion.
I read this book in high school. Will definitely join in and read it again.
I love how easy it is to feel part of this story and to honestly visualize what is happening throughout! Got the 14 chapters done but just do not want to stop reading! I read this book several times and love it every time!
Hi ladies, we officially start discussing tomorrow, but if anyone wants to start off with some initial thoughts there is no harm in that. Thanks again, Collin for linking the author's note. I enjoyed the insight it gave me on the author.
Here is a brief Bio:
Born on December 15, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants, she grew up poor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and attended Girl's High School.[1] These experiences served as the framework to her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943).
After marrying George H. E. Smith, a fellow Brooklynite, she moved with him to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he pursued a law degree at the University of Michigan. At this time, she gave birth to two girls and waited until they were in school so she could complete her higher education. Although Smith had not finished high school, the university allowed her to enroll in classes. There she honed her skills in journalism, literature, writing, and drama, winning a prestigious Avery Hopwood Award. She was a student in the classes of Professor Kenneth Thorpe Rowe.
In 1938 she divorced her husband and moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There she married Joseph Jones in 1943, the same year in which A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published. She teamed with George Abbott to write the book for the 1951 musical adaptation of the same name. Throughout her life, Smith worked as a dramatist, receiving many awards and fellowships including the Rockefeller Fellowship and the Dramatists Guild Fellowship for her work in drama. Her other novels include Tomorrow Will Be Better (1947), Maggie-Now (1958) and Joy in the Morning (1963).
On January 17, 1972, she died from pneumonia in Shelton, Connecticut, at the age of 75.
In addition, I found this website to have a lot of interesting information on it:
http://web.njit.edu/~cjohnson/tree/bi...
I just can't put the book down!! Each time one reads it, there is a new connection to make or a new realization. When I first read this book in my early teens, I connected to Francie. As this is my third read and I have college-aged children...... I can feel for Katie while still identifying with Francie. Some books are treasures!
It feels like a book I will definitely want to keep with me.
The description of Francie's love of reading, and her ritualistic devotion to the library, just knocked me out. I could be Francie, I can see myself on her fire escape, pillows, candy, book and all :)
I also loved our small town library and read voraciously!
I got tickled at Francie and her plan to read all the books in the world in alphabetical order...and her thinking all the books in the world were in her library.I found her likeable from the beginning. Her goal to work hard, save money and buy every single book she liked really grabbed me.
Francis is definitely a strong female character! I live the vivid description of the setting in these first few chapters.
I totally agree with all of you. I read for the first time with an audiobook this last fall and really wondered how I had missed this book. I was so Francie growing up as far as the love of books. My Mom told me she read it in high school. That would have been i the early 50's which I found interesting. Anybody else assigned this book in school?
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I also love the character of Francie, and love her love of books. This is a very descriptive story, and I love how I feel like I can really see what is happening, feel what is going on.
Thank you to all the ladies who suggested this as our next classic club read. :o)
I didn't read it in high school and I teach high school and it's not on any list. Sad though, I have probably had this book on my shelf for about 10 years and left it unread. I am happy to finally get to it.
I love the character of Francie too and I loved the library scene, though I found it sad that the librarian was so unaware that she asked for a book each week.
I am loving this book! I can't believe I had not read id before! I love Francie and completely identify with her love of reading and the library. I also loved the scene in which Katie's mother told her what to do to ensure that Francie had a chance at a better life: The Protestant Bible, Shakespeare, and make sure she believes in fairies, elves, dwarfs, and Kris Kringle! I think there was a lot of truth in what she said. Reading, Imagining, and believing have certainly helped me through the years.
I didn't think much about her that part. I like your interpretation, it makes sense to me and it is very true.
I really found the ending of the chapter 13 to have a powerful message and was worded beautifully. "They were bums and they were hungry and they didn't have a talent for song-making. All they had in the world was the nerve to stand in a backyard with cap in hand and sing loudly. The sad thing was in the knowing that all their nerve would get them nowhere and they were lost as all people in Brooklyn seem lost when the day is nearly over and even though the sun is still bright, it is thing and doesn't give you warmth when it shines on you,"(115).
It really speaks to the lack of hope.
Please feel free to discuss anything you wish from the first two parts. I would like to hear impressions so far, favorite lines, and anything that has stood out to you.
I was wondering what you think about the reasons the Nolans decide to move each time?
What do you think about the varying impressions of Sissy? What are your thoughts on her?
Just a few things to get us started :)
I think the Nolans had to move because of circumstances that were embarrassing or that Katie believed put the family in a bad light! Sissy is a character that is full of life and has a zest for life! I loved that she was part of this story which proves that no family is perfect!
I was thinking that obviously their circumstances are not good and in can't be easy to move because you are embarrassed. However, it says a lot about the values of the family, Katie, especially.
I loved the bank made from the sweetened condensed milk can nailed to the closet floor. I wonder if Katie will ever save $50? She keeps having to pay movers...I have containers to hold loose change in two closets. My girls love saving their change too.
I'm enjoying the book so far. I think Sissy is my favorite character. She seems more complex, and therefore, real to me. I don't have the book in front of me, but I think my favorite passage so far is where Katie is talking to her neighbors about the tree and how if you value it and treat it well, it can be a thing of beauty.
I wanted to cry when the girl spit in Francie's face over the eraser clapping. The vaccination episode was so sad too. There seems to be a repeated theme of innocence and ignorance throughout this book. It made me glad to see Sissy return.
I am also loving this book, but mostly because the characters remind me of members of my family, and it takes me back to being little again. My Great Grandmother was like Katie's mother...I mean exactly like her description on page 62---she knew all saints and also believed in fairy folk--She also had a saintly way about her but never seemed to hold other people to her own moral conduct. My Great Grandfather--I was only a couple days old when he died--he wasn't a hateful man like Katie's dad, but stories tell me he was abrasive. He would call his daughter's sister, "Hey look here sister", he would say. He also would trip my dad with his cane intentionally when my dad started dating my mother (we laugh about this now, even my dad). He could not resist babies--loved them ( that is different). We always wondered how two opposites, my great grandparents came to be a couple. I thought the same thing about the characters in this book.My favourite character is Sissy also. She is authentic and it is hard to resist her authenticity. I feel terribly sorry for her...because she is so nice you want her to be happy. I think she is superstitious and this leads to some trouble for her. I also don't understand the men she is with. The firemen doesn't seem so happy about giving her up, having an affair with her well after, but yet the book says he was. Why are the men in this book portrayed as unsatisfied all the time?
I also love the way Francie describes how she is a mix of the people in her life page 72, " And the child Francie was all the Rommelys and all the Nolans. She had the violent weaknesses and passion for beauty of the shanty Nolans. She was a mosaic of her grandmother Romellys mysticism, her tale telling, her great belief in everything and her compassion for the weak ones...." I love that whole paragraph and the one after it.That part when Francie says she is like all the books she has read--I felt a little like a little bit of all the characters in this book. I guess that is a sign of great storytelling.
I love how simple the times were, a horse drawn carriage used for advertising, a dill pickle was a treat, and children could stay and play outside for hours. There are days that I wish it was like that still. Feel bad that my kids don't get to experience that often.
Autumn wrote: "I love how simple the times were, a horse drawn carriage used for advertising, a dill pickle was a treat, and children could stay and play outside for hours. There are days that I wish it was like ..."The description of her love of dill pickles hit home for me -- throughout my childhood, when I went to the grocery store with my mom I was allowed one treat... most kids might pick a candy bar (and AbbaDabbas were tempting! :), but I always chose those great big fat gorgeous kosher dill pickles wrapped all alone in their pickle juicey sealed plastic bags. I could make one last all day.
In retrospect, I wonder if the craving for dill pickles didn't have something to do with an imbalanced diet -- my parents grew up in farm country, and bread/biscuits & gravy, potatoes, carbs carbs carbs were the norm in our family -- too much carb & alkaline producing foods? In the kind of poverty experienced by Francie's family, filler foods (carbs) often had to take the place of fruit, vegies, and protein.
Janice George wrote: "Autumn wrote: "I love how simple the times were, a horse drawn carriage used for advertising, a dill pickle was a treat, and children could stay and play outside for hours. There are days that I wi..."My grandma used to take me to get a piece of beef jerky. And when I was little I had a fascination with limes and lemons...my great grandma would say after my mom would make me put it back, " at least the girl can have a lemon." She would put it back in the cart. When we got home she would pour tea/and or coffee and cut up the lemon for me. This reminds me of Katie letting Francie have the coffee.
We did not have money back then...and your thoughts on the possible reasons I also would choose those type of things over candy are interesting and most definitely probable. I had never thought of that before.
Loved the last sentence of chapter 7, But they were made out of thin invisible steel. (in describing the Rommely women)
...and I also get tickled to read that someone "has consumption."I'm really curious about what's going the happen to Johnny.
Beginning of chapter 8
But they were all dead before they were thirty-five -- all dead, and of the four, only Johnny left children.
And the last sentence of this section
Francie didn't notice that he said my last home instead of our last home. .
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February 5th - Discuss Books 1 and 2 (Chapters 1-14)
February 12th- Discuss first half of Book 3 (Chapters 15- 31)
February 19th - Discuss second half of Book 3 (Chapters 32-42)
February 26th - Discuss Books 4 and 5 (Chapters 43 - 56)