A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Godmothers Staff Pick: “‘A Tree Grows In Brooklyn‘ is the first book I remember getting truly lost in—and I’ve probably read it 20 times since then. As a girl growing up in a teeny-tiny Rhode Island beach town in the ’80s, I didn’t have much on the surface in common with Francie Nolan, who lived in a tenement in turn-of-the-last-century Brooklyn. But her curiosity and perspective spoke to me, and I loved how deeply, imperfectly real all of the characters felt.” —Kim

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."