Wholesale Tree Grows in Brooklyn American Classics: Betty Smith

Betty Smith Paperback FICTION/Cultural Heritage Series: HarperCollins American Classics American Classics Edition Betty's Smith's beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century, growing up in the slums of immigrant New York, fortified by the love of her family and her own hunger to learn. This edition is a part of the HarperCollins American Classics collection, published in celebration of America’s 250th Anniversary. Orville Prescott of the New York Times called this American classic “One of the most dearly beloved and one of the finest books of our day.” Indeed, when A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was first published in 1943, four printing plants were required to keep up with the demand. Now, more than 80 years later, readers are still taken by Betty Smith’s moving portrayal of the Nolan's, a poor family living in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn.From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg 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 her Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce—no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolan's life lacked drama. By turns heartbreaking and uplifting, the Nolan's daily experiences are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty.Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble life—from “junk day” on Saturdays, when the children of Francie’s neighborhood traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Betty Smith has artfully caught this sense of exciting life in a novel of childhood, replete with incredibly rich moments of universal experiences.