SPOILERS AHEAD
People have been telling me for years that I'd like this book. I finally got around to reading it and...wow.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is about the lives of the Nolan family. Francie in particular. It's about their struggles and triumphs, how Francie and her little brother Neely grow up in the slums of Brooklyn.
I don't usually read books like this one. There's no main issue, it's simply a book over time about the family and Francie's love for reading and writing. Oh, it's about much more than that, but that's what it centers on.
It begins when Francie is 11 years old. She and Neely collect junk and scraps and sell it for pennies to the local junk man. There are flashbacks to establish their parents' and grandparents' backstories to fill in and round out the story.
What to me is very remarkable about this book are how the characters, mainly Francie, her mother Katie, and her Father Johnny are portrayed through their thought process.
It's Johnny's ambition that he teach his kids all he knows so that when they reach his age, the'll know twice as much as him.
Katie is similar, in that she desperately wants her kids to be educated, because she and Johnny never finished their formal education.
Knowledge and education are two of the most important things to these parents. They can't give their kids much, so they do what they can to make sure they grow up smart.
Francie's thought process is at first fanciful, as you'd expect from an 11-year old child. The part of her that struck me the most is how she listens to what people have to say, but for the most part she forms her own conclusions and opinions. For example, when she sees women bullying a young single mother for daring to show herself with her baby, she is told that there is a lesson with that girl. But what is the lesson? She concludes that since the women are bitter and hateful towards the young mother, the lesson is that she shouldn't trust women because while they should be helpful and supportive of the young mother, they do everything they can to make her miserable.
While this conclusion may not be entirely accurate, it shows that Francie is a free thinker and does not blindly follow the crowd or have her opinions handed to her.
Perhaps the best example of this, and also my favorite part in the book, is when Francie's English teacher tells her that the stories she wrote about her father are ugly, trash.
Francie has written several very good compositions for English, receiving A's on all of them. And then she writes four very true stories about her father, and being poor in Brooklyn. Her teacher hates them. She doesn't believe life can be as hard as Francie writes it, and tells her that she must burn the stories, and tell herself that she is burning ugliness.
As the reader, I was very angry at the teacher, and worried that Francie would listen to her. Everything the teacher said was false, and horrible, and Francie should never have had to listen to it.
She goes home and thinks about it. She tries to write a story the way she thinks her teacher will like it, but realizes that it's what she's written before, only fictionalized and too silly. She ends up burning all her A papers, telling herself, "I'm burning ugliness."
It's so important for Francie to realize that not all of her elders' views are true and should be followed. Francie is truly a free thinker here. Which is perhaps my favorite part in the entire book.

The book continues to go through Francie's life until she goes to college. This part of the book is a little less interesting, but still very gripping.

All in all I loved this book, even though life books aren't really my thing. I can't see myself reading it again, but the feeling of comfort and satisfaction I got from reading this book puts it at my top 10 greatest books.