[UC5]∎ PDF Free A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] Perennial Classics Betty Smith Books

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] Perennial Classics Betty Smith Books

Download As PDF : A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] Perennial Classics Betty Smith Books

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] Perennial Classics Betty Smith Books

Awesome book, read it in 3 days.


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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] Perennial Classics Betty Smith Books Reviews

I read this when I was a teenager and much of Francie's life mirrors mine. I spent many hours of my preteen yrs climbing trees ... they were my escape from the chaos & sadness of my life. Much of her life mirrors my own. 50+ yrs later I understand even more why I love this book. I've cried as I remember the experiences & feelings which shaped who I am. Today I have a life my mother only dreamed of ... I'm college educated ... I have a loving & supportive husband, 2 wonderful children & many grandchildren. My life has not been easy by any means but the optimism of my spirit ... like Francie's ... has propelled me to where I am. I recommend this book for everyone regardless of their !ife's experiences. Understanding the lives of this family in Brooklyn at the beginning of the 1900s ... their struggle to put food on the table & keep warm in the winter ... the determination of Francie's mother, Katie, to raise her children to be educated, proud of who they are in spite of the poverty & to never take charity but work as hard as they can ... is a must read!!!
Every word of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a treat. I have never come across such a beautifully sculpted book before in my entire life. This was a book I would be one hundred percent content never finishing; I could keep reading it forever and ever. There’s no true plot to it in the way that life has no true plot. For that’s what this is, the story of someone’s life, the author’s really. It’s all of these vignettes which weave her life together in the most poetic way. But it isn’t annoying or clunky or just plain irritating like other books which try to do the same thing (A House on Mango Street, anyone? Ugh….) It doesn’t feel like mini stories until you go back at the end and try to say what exactly it was about. Only then do you realize the spider web the author wove, full of holes and yet strong, and beautiful, and complete. It’s stunning and heart wrenching but not sappily sentimental. It’s the kind of book and the kind of writing which will never die. If you haven’t already guessed, I recommend this book. Highly.
Seeing the world through the eyes of young Francie Nolan in the years just before and during WWI reveals a much different place than the Brooklyn of today. She and her brother grow up unsure of any schooling beyond elementary school. Their father works intermittently as a singing waiter, and their mother as a scrubwoman in the flats near theirs. Still, they read pages from Shakespeare and the Bible every night, and their mother trades flat cleaning and a supper meal for piano lessons. Frannie has a gift for writing, but has to contend with a teacher who believes that the only good literature is about beauty, and not true life. How Frannie achieves her goals shows us what was available to young girls in the 1910s and what the mindset of the era was.
My favourite book of all time. I discovered this by accident, and when I read it I felt sure that it was written recently. Was surprised to learn the story's age. This wonderful, poignant, shocking, sad, beautiful, brilliant book was an instant re-read for me, and one I have re-read every year since that first time I read it.
Betty Smith wrote a classic, about very ordinary people, who just happened to live special lives. They are poor, very poor. The father is an alcoholic, but a dreamer, who wants to hand to moon for his wife and kids, but never can. We should hate him, but instead we see him through his daughter's eyes, and we understand. I first read this when I was in high school in the 60s. I was surprised when a classmate's mother forbid her to read it, Yes, it can get raw, poverty and reality are raw. I had no problem with it at 16, but I was never sheltered. I is a good story about a hard working mother, a young daughter who dreams like her dad, works like her mom and has a passion for learning. It is about the human spirit and all it is capable of.
Highly recommended particulary for the under 18 and older than 12 crowd. This is the book that convinced my sixth grade self that I wasn't uncool for spending so much time reading and dreaming. For if those things were satisfying for Francie Nolan they were good enough for me. I loved the quiet pathos of the book. Francie's mother's determination to teach her children with nightly readings of William Shakespeare and the Bible are in stark contrast to their father's devil may care attitude. Her father encouraged Francie to dream big .. her mother taught her that dreams are fine as long as you keep one foot on the ground.

I think this book is equally compelling for adults. There are adult situations. Situations like alcoholism , deviant behavior, and death that serve as a perfect way to introduce and discuss these matters with young tweens and teens. It has been almost 80 years since publication but the novel has aged very well. After 40 years and rereadimg the book countless times Framcie Nolan is still my literary friend. This book is simply marvelous.
I honestly don't know where to begin. This is a truly great novel. Years ago, I read this book but I did not, at the time, fully appreciate the consistently high quality of the prose, and the depth of the writer's insights into human nature and the world she describes in such detail for us. A few weeks ago I sat down and read it word for word from beginning to end and I was enormously moved by and impressed with it. The writing is rich, precise, brilliantly restrained and immensely satisfying. Francie is a true heroine, struggling to fulfill her dreams as a sensitive and creative young person in a harsh and often brutal environment. Her imagination and intelligence are beautifully revealed in pages filled with brilliant and wise observation, and simple incidents that can move you to tears. In many respects it's a heartbreaking novel, filled with suffering, and often deeply sad; but it's always enormously inspiring and somehow always entertaining. That some critics when it was published dismissed it as "sentimental" is hard to believe. It is anything but sentimental. ---- It is realism at its finest. Highly recommended. Truly an American classic.
Awesome book, read it in 3 days.