It is common for the character to suffer and undergo hardships that test his or her strength and will to succeed. Typically, in a coming-of-age novel, the protagonist endures great trials and difficulty, at the end of which he or she has matured and grown stronger. Publishers who rejected Betty for 20 years, I’m looking at you.) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn can be described as a coming-of-age story. If an 11-year-old girl could inspire soldiers fighting in WWII, surely today’s kids can also relate to a resilient girl. Francie Nolan is eleven years old, and she and her brother are collecting junk to exchange for pennies. A poignant tale of childhood and the ties of family, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn will transport the reader to the early 1900s where a little girl named Francie dreamily looks out her window at a tree struggling to reach the sky. (I feel like this is a good history lesson for publishers who want authors to change their main characters from females to males. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn begins on a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1912 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where a tree called the Tree of Heaven grows amidst the tenement houses. The book, first published in 1943, was released as an Armed Services Edition–small enough to fit in the pockets of soldiers (it even shows up in the Band of Brothers mini-series). In the courtyard is a tree, called the Tree of Heaven. This tale of a young girl growing up in poverty in Brooklyn, New York, has moved readers for decades.įrancie Nolan is an introspective, bookish girl who escapes into her imagination when the grind of poverty and her father’s alcoholism get to be too much.ĭespite the bleakness, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is ultimately a hopeful story, with the eponymous tree as the central metaphor of resilience. Set among Brooklyn tenements circa 1912, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a portrait of the Nolans, an Irish-American family living in financially challenging. It is 1912, and the Nolan family lives in an apartment in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It grows only in the tenement districts, where the poor. There is a certain kind of tree that grows throughout the neighborhood, called the Tree of Heaven by some, since it grows wherever its seeds landin old lots, trash heaps, and even cement. Do you want to read more books like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith? The books on this list are perfect choices for anyone looking for a similar novel with unforgettable characters, strong females, and hopeful stories of perseverance.īetty Smith’s classic novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is a favorite of so many readers. The story opens by describing a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, called Williamsburg.

A tree grows in brooklyn