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."
Recommended on 1 episode:
- 📕 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, Noel Polk
- 📘 The House of Mirth (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Edith Wharton, Cynthia Griffin Wolff
- 📗 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] (Perennial Classics) by Betty Smith
- 📙 Another Brooklyn: A Novel by Jacqueline Woodson
- 📕 My Antonia by Willa Cather by Willa Cather
- 📘 Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
- 📗 Unbought and Unbossed by Shirley Chisholm
- 📙 Elephant and the Bad Baby by Elfrida Vipont, Raymond Briggs
- 📕 The Church Mouse by Graham Oakley
- 📘 Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold
- 📗 The Highway Rat [Paperback] [Jul 07, 2016] Julia Donaldson (author), Axel Scheffler (illustrator) by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler
- 📙 The Complete 8-Book Ramona Collection: Beezus and Ramona, Ramona and Her Father, Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona Forever, Ramona ... World: 8 Beloved Beverly Cleary Classics by Beverly Cleary, Jacqueline Rogers
- 📕 When You Reach Me: (Newbery Medal Winner) (Yearling Newbery) by Rebecca Stead
- 📘 The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis