A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [0]
in Brooklyn
BETTY SMITH
With a Foreword by
Anna Quindlen
Contents
E-book Extra
Self-Reliance: A Reading Group Guide
Foreword
As much as any other beloved book in the canon…
BOOK ONE
1 Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New…
2 The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought…
3 Papa came home at five o’clock. By that time, the…
4 After she had seen Papa off, Francie went up to…
5 Mama came home at six with Aunt Sissy. Francie was…
6 Neeley came home and he and Francie were sent out…
BOOK TWO
7 It was in another Brooklyn summer but twelve years earlier,…
8 The Rommelys ran to women of strong personalities. The Nolans…
9 Johnny and Katie were married and went to live on…
10 Francie wasn’t much of a baby. She was skinny and…
11 Johnny celebrated his voting birthday by getting drunk for three…
12 Katie was ashamed to stay in the neighborhood after Johnny’s…
13 Lorimer Street was more refined than Bogart Street. It was…
14 Life was pleasant in Lorimer Street and the Nolans would…
BOOK THREE
15 Four rooms made up the new flat. They led one…
16 The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city…
17 Piano lessons! Magic words! As soon as the nolans were…
18 School days were eagerly anticipated by Francie. She wanted all…
19 Francie expected great things from school. Since vaccination taught her…
20 Katie’s campaign against vermin and disease started the day her…
21 Francie liked school in spite of all the meanness, cruelty,…
22 Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can…
23 School days went along. Some were made up of meanness,…
24 Francie counted the year’s passing not by the days or…
25 Johnny was one for taking notions. He’d take a notion…
26 Most children brought up in Brooklyn before the First World…
27 Christmas was a charmed time in Brooklyn. It was in…
28 The future was a near thing to Katie. She had…
29 In the summer of that same year, Johnny got the…
30 “Today, I am a woman,” wrote Francie in her diary…
31 Two very important things happened in the year that Francie…
32 Francie had started a diary on her thirteenth birthday with…
33 Yes, there was a great curiosity about sex among the…
34 When Francie heard Aunt Sissy tell Mama that she was…
35 Once more it was in the week before Christmas. Francie…
36 Johnny died three days later.
37 Katie stayed in bed the day after the funeral and…
38 Just before Christmas vacation ended, Francie told Mama that she…
39 Francie and Neeley were confirmed in may. Francie was almost…
40 Two days, Francie came home for lunch and did not…
41 Laurie was a good baby. She slept contentedly most of…
42 Francie hardly had time to get used to Laurie when…
BOOK FOUR
43 “You got the idea now,” said the forelady to Francie.…
44 Francie had been working two weeks when the layoff came.
45 Christmas again. But this year there was money for presents…
46 “In ten more minutes,” announced Francie, “it will be 1917.”
47 For the little while of the Christmas holidays, it had…
48 A Newspaper lay on Francie’s desk. It was an “extra”…
49 Francie came away from her first chemistry lecture in a…
50 Sissy expected her baby late in November. Katie and Evy…
51 When it got too cold to go walking, Francie enrolled…
52 One sunny day in the spring when Francie was sixteen,…
53 She wrote that night as she had promised—a long…
54 It was the first time Francie had seen McShane without…
BOOK FIVE
55 Francie jumped as someone tapped her on the shoulder. Then…
56 Saturday! The last Saturday in their old home. The next…
About the Author
Books by Betty Smith
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
E-book Extra
Self-Reliance: A Reading Group Guide
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
In a particularly revealing chapter of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Francie’s teacher dismisses her essays about everyday life among the poor as “sordid.” Indeed, many of the novel’s characters seem to harbor a sense of shame about their poverty, but they also display a remarkable self-reliance