One of my all-time favorite books, ever is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I read it as a teen and have read it again as an adult. I would easily put it in my top 20 books ever. The book is a classic and it’s written by Betty Smith. I was afraid when I read it as an adult that I would be disappointed the book will have lost its magic. I wasn’t disappointed. I highly recommend the book.
![A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [75th Anniversary Ed] [Perennial Classics] by Smith, Be](https://i0.wp.com/i.ebayimg.com/images/g/CA0AAOSwB-1YpPi5/s-l640.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1)
Well for some reason I never went on and checked if the author had any other books. Then an email came from Audible and it said that more of Smith’s books were being released in audio format. I jumped right on that.
I picked out Joy in the Morning…
Sadly, this wasn’t the book that “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” was. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate it. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it. It only means that only so many books can be in the top 20. All in all, the book was okay.
I think Betty Smith, the author, was a writer for women. She brings to light so many things that women of the time had to deal with and learn when living in the late 20’s and early 30’s.
Here’s what Amazon had to say:
“In 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet and fall in love. Though only 18, Annie travels alone halfway across the country to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law – and there they marry.
But Carl and Annie’s first year together is much more difficult than they anticipated as they find themselves in a faraway place with little money and few friends. With hardship and poverty weighing heavily upon them, they come to realize that their greatest sources of strength, loyalty, and love will help them make it through.”
Amazon readers gave the book 4.5 stars. I’m going to give it 4.2 stars. The book was a little slow. There really wasn’t a “plot”. It was more or a book that showed a slice of life during that period in history. It was not an exciting read.
Young adult fiction. “His Majesty’s Dragon” by Naomi Novick offers a great listening experience. There are several books in the series if you want to continue with the story. Are you familiar with it?
I read both a long time ago and liked them both. I read this one first and liked it better. :-). Did you ever rad Mrs. Mike? Interesting book about a woman who married a Mountie and lived way up north.
Just an FYI the adds that go around the whole screen are wildly annoying since they pop you away from where you are reading or writing. And you have to find your spot again and again and again and again.
Interesting. I don’t have any of those ads on my screen. I am using Chrome. Perhaps changing the browser might change those annoying ads.
I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn since I was young. One of my all time favourites.
Mts. Mike is a really good story…..about a certain time period and set in Alaska or the Yukon. There is a sequel which I recently discovered and read.
I’ve read and re-read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn multiple times. I first read it long ago when visiting my grandparents one summer – probably around 1967. It’s in my top 20 best books as well! My adult daughter (who was a literature teacher for 7th graders) also loves this book. I agree about Joy in the Morning.
Your blog is one I read every day. Thanks for sharing your life!
“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” was made into a movie that came out in 1945. My parents enjoyed the movie and my dad loved the nickname of the of the main character. I was born later in 1945 while my dad was stationed on Okinawa. So, my mom named me Prima Donna. The actual translation is “first lady”. Well, I was the eldest of my parents 4 daughters. No sons. I have read the book several times myself, for obvious reasons. LOL
The Betty Smith book I read, many times, when I was growing up was “Maggie Now”. It was in a box of books we inherited from my grandmother and I pored over those books to the point where many of the lines in the books come back to me now, decades later. In the same boxes of books was “To Kill A Mockingbird”, which I first read in about the third grade–too young to understand many of the subtleties but that book became a part of me, as I kept reading and re-reading it.
You might want to try “Maggie Now”, although I can’t really be objective about it; I loved it dearly then, but don’t know how well it holds up.