Day 14 | Angies Grapevine

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 14

Book that should be on hs/college required reading list

A Tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, should be on high school/college required reading list if it’s not already.

This is actually a book I may just re read. 🙂

It was published in 1943 and sold over 300,000 copies in its first 6 weeks.

Betty Smith wrote from her experiences growing up in Brooklyn and created “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”.

The following is part a book review by Esther Lombardi

“Francie’s mother, Katie, is the child of immigrants. Like so many others, they came to America to make a better life for their children. When Francie was born, Katie’s mother visited her and told her what she must do to help her children succeed.Katie’s mother stressed the importance of reading the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. She also said, “you must tell the children the legends I told you–as my mother told them to me. You must tell the fairy tales of the old country. You must tell of those not of the earth who live forever in the hearts of people–fairies, elves, dwarfs, and such…”Perhaps the readings and the stories were not the only things that helped Francie to develop such an active imagination, but they became a part of who she was. She was a part of her family history. Smith writes, “She was all these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day.” It’s that “something” that is in “each soul that is given life–the one different thing such as that which makes no fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.”