A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN: BY BETTY SMITH

     Many people would ask you the normal question about the book... what's the book about? Well to tell you the truth, it isn't about anything. Let me be more specific. There is a story, but the plot isn't that clear. The story is about a little girl. And unlike most protagonists, she doesn't do something noble or heroic. She doesn't live a good life, or have many friends. It's a book about living in Brooklyn, it's about learning new things. Its about discovering.

     As you walk down the streets of Brooklyn in 1912, you see dirty boys dressed in rags, their faces covered in soot, dirt, and grit playing with a tin can on the sidewalks. A little farther you see women in corsets and long dresses with multiple layers discussing, and men talking politics. Farther on, you see a man with hunched shoulder, walking sideways, as you get closer to him, you see his face, a man about the age of their late twenties early thirties, drunk. He would have been handsome, with his wavy blond hair and blue eyes.... In disgust, you continue walking, wondering what could have gone wrong in HIS life. You see two people walking towards you, a girl and a boy walking shoulder to shoulder with their head bent low. They pick up their head when they walk by you and you see their faces. Both would have been every bit as handsome if they could wash their faces. As they look past you, they spot the man. "Daddy," they shout running toward the man. Together they help the man on to the steps of a three story apartment. When you look up you see a women the same age as the man poke her head out the window and holler for the girl to help her. Her face looks young, but her eyes are tired and her mouth seems set in a straight permanent line. You have just met the Nolan family. Their life is a lot different then ours. With a father who is a drunk and mother who loves the boy better than her girl, you wonder how Francie, the protagonist, copes with her life in Brooklyn. 

   I have read 220 pages and Francie hasn't done anything heroic yet. She hasn't saved a dieing person, shown any nobility, or pride. She hasn't done anything. Perhaps its because she's living a normal life, perhaps it's because this book is about living a normal life. One that you and I live in. It might be in a different time period but Franice is one of the very few people in a book who live like us. Maybe that's why it's so interesting