Dapto Tuesday Book Club

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the coming-of-age story of young, sensitive and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the turn-of-the centuryWilliamsburgslums ofBrooklyn. This poignant and moving tale is filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.

From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life ofWilliamsburgdemanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Betty Smith has artfully caught this sense of exciting life in a novel of childhood, replete with incredibly rich moments of universal experiences.

As a book group, we are no strangers to American classics. We’ve delved into more than a few over the 10 years we have been meeting, and on no occasion have they been described as ‘saccharine’. But there is a first time for everything, and this is exactly what approximately half of our group thought of Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. If you would like to learn more … and there is more, visit Over the Fence and read on.

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