A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick
A special 75th anniversary edition of 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 growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn,
New York 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, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans' daily
experiences are raw with honestly and tenderly threaded with family
connectedness. 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 traded their weekly take for
pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for
celebration and revelry. Smith has created a work of literary art that
brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant
moments of universal experience. Here is an American classic that "cuts
right to the heart of life," hails the New York Times. "If you miss A
Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you will deny yourself a rich experience."
