Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A

Rating:
Summary: A Treasure
Review: My grandmother Nettie grew up in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg, Brooklyn area that Francie Nolan grew up in around the same time and it helped me to appreciate and understand her childhood better than any photograph could. For decades and generations, my family have treasures this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Really Touching Book
Review: Last summer I was really bored so I went to the bookstore to the classic section. I figure, if they're classics, they must be good. Well, I was so right. I can read this book over and over and everytime I read it I love it. I like to picture life as it was in the early century, and this book showed me that it wasn't all fun and games and that everyone struggles. I cried when the father died becasue he seemed like such a hard worker and the entire family depended on him. The book is better then the movie and nothing ever made with the name attached will be better. Even though the length is really long, you become so interested in the characters that it goes by like that. and remember: IF ITS A CLASSIC, IT MUST BE GOOD, and it is.

Rating:
Summary: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Review: This was the best book I have ever read. I was assigned it for an English class I took. I moved away from my old school and finished it for no reason at all. I feel in love with Francie, and continued to read "Joy in the Morning", also by Betty Smith. That was wonderful too. I am currently reading "Maggie-Now", by Betty Smith. She has a way of writing that I can't even describe how good it is. I would reccomend for anyone that hasn't read "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" to do it fast. I learned a lot from it, and I think you will too. I have been encouraged by this book to be strong when times are tough, and to NEVER give up. Here's the surprise, I'm only 15 years old. I think I have matured a lot from reading this book. I can't seem to stop reading. This book has gotten me addicted to reading. I go from one book to the next, but "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" will always be my favorite. Jamie

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece Overlooked
Review: This book has the eloquence, interest, and truth of history's greatest stories. By reading this novel, we also find an introspective view at a pivotal point in American history. I am deeply curious as to why Betty Smith's classic story of Francie Nolan has not been named the Great American Novel, for surely it qualifies.

Rating:
Summary: This book deserves to be acknoledged as a master peice!!!
Review: When reading this book for a seventh grade book report, I fell deaply in love with it!!! It was all so realistic. I was given a month and a half to read the book and write the report, but now I am finished after four days!!! I love this book and will read it many more times in my life time! I belive Betty Smith Deserves great praise for her work in this book. My heart goes out to the Nolan family. They suffered and worked so much with little reward. The ending is extremely heart warming! Anybody that doesn't read this book will be greatly deprived!

Rating:
Summary: A book to grow on
Review: When I was fourteen I read this book for a class in junior high. Now, at age twenty, I am reading it again for a book review and have found that I have a deeper understanding of its meaning. Francie is like the inner child in all of us, wanting to be greater than anyone thinks she can. She rose up out of poverty by her own thinking and has shown us that we can do whatever we set our mind to. Her mother Katie was a very strong character who gave us an insite into a mother's love for her children. At the end, I loved the symbolizm where Francie says good-bye to her old self, the next little girl to take her place. And always, there is the tree, the one that will never die. To me, that tree stood for the continuation of life itself - it will always go on.

Rating:
Summary: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a heart-warming book.
Review: I loved this book. It touched me. The Nolans struggled throughout the years and as they grew I grew too. I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's good reading.

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Summary: I "stole" that book 36 years ago..........
Review: It was 1962. I was 15. My life paralleled Francie's in so many ways I couldn't stand it. I desperately wanted a copy of the book but my family, like Francie's was very poor and we couldn't afford it. I was a student librarian at my high school and one of my jobs was to repair the books that had broken spines, and torn pages. As luck (fate?) would have it, one of the books in my pile of repairs was the "Tree." It was so torn and tattered, the spine broken beyond repair (at least that was my juicy rationalization in my desperate, grasping teenage mind). The pages were like onion skin and spilled on to the floor when I picked the book up. I remember the decision vividly. Without hesitation I slipped the book into my large purse. I read, reread, the book and read it some more. My ritual was to read it at least once a year. It touched me in so many ways. Now it's 1998. I still have the book. I've moved cross country and back numerous times. I have lost more books and possessions in moving than I care to remember. But you know how when you move you always take your most precious things with you so nothing happens to them? This is what I have always done with "Tree." It is my most treasured possesion. Yes, I made good on my theft. Some years ago I wrote a letter to the school and explained what I had done and enclosed a check so they could buy many, many more books. It's wonderful to read the reviews and know that this work of art has touched others lives as deeply as it has mine.

Rating:
Summary: This is the book I grew up with as I read it with many eyes.
Review: I first read this book when I was 13 and at that age, I related to Francie. As I grew older, I find myself relating to more that of Aunt Sissy and fianally Katie's. Aunt Sissy's "love for men" was a strength and a weakness. It was a strength with her relationship to Johnnie's that out of her love and compassion she gave him alcohol when he was drying out cold turkey as could not stand to see such sadness and suffering. It was also her compassion for others that allowed her to adopt an unwanted child which invaribly saved it's life as well as the mother's. There was no judgement nor moralization on Sissy's part. When I was younger, I didn't like the mother, Katie much, but now I understand the hardship she went through to provide for her family through it's setbacks. She lost some of the joie de vive, but in the end got what she truly deserved, a good reliable man to provide security and love. She married Johnny out of young immurity, but sadly paid the price. This book also gives great background of the New York Tamammy Hall political corruption of the time as a general feel of the firt 20 years of this century from the view of an every day working class family. I read this book every 12-18 months or so and always find something new. To this day, reading about how Francie received the graduation roses from he father posthoumously, I cry. It is touching to know of an example of how love reaches through even death to reach another through Aunt Sissy's compassion.

Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: This is a book that deserves to be read by all. Simply beautiful!