Blog Critique

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Betty Smith

The book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is about a young girl named Francie and her little brother Neely growing up in Brooklyn during 1902-1919. Francie and Neely go through poverty and a lot of hard times growing up. This book made me realize that we have life easier now then people like Francie and Neely did back then. This book is also about how terrible and great life was back then. Francie made life through her eyes fun until she grew up and understood that life wasn't as great as she planned it was when she was a child.

This book reminds me of To Kill A Mocking Bird because it shows me that not only African-Americans went through hard times but everyone was equal because they all went through hard times. In this book all of the children go through rough and hard times in school and growing up in general. In To Kill A Mocking Bird the children got through the same things with having to drop out of school to help their family around the house, to clean and grow food for themselves and others, and learning.

The saddest part of this book to me was when Francie and Neely's dad Johnny died. The was very sick for 8 months straight from January- July and then he got better for three weeks then he got sick from August- December and he died on December 25th, 1915 at age 34.

I would definitely would recommend this book to everyone because honestly it is one of the greatest books I've ever read. The book explains years of the children's childhood to when they get into their tween years. This book will show everyone just as it showed me that we have life easier then those who actually lived during 1902-1919 because they went through poverty and only certain people where allowed to work, and only certain were allowed to vote while others stood in the background watching and wishing that their life were easier. This book is worth five stars and it was wonderful to read.

Reading Response # 22

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Betty Smith
Page 131- Page 286

In the past two days I've read my book club book from school A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Everyone said that this book was a great book. I didn't believe because I'm into the mysterious-weird types of books that have amazing twists but this book bend my book types. I enjoy reading this book so much. It shows me that if we think that life is hard now it was way harder in 1902-1919. We go through better things then the people lived then did.

What they considered expensive back then we consider it cheap now. But we must remember it was expensive to those who had to work as hard as they could possibly imagine and we get money given to us.

This book takes place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The protagonist is Francie Nolan(really Mary Francie Nolan). And there is only one Antagonist that comes into the book when Francie is 14 years old that tries to rape her.

Before Francie was born her grandmother and mother had a personal mom to mom-to-be talk. Katie is Francie's mom and Mary is Katie's mom. Mary tells Katie that everyday before her children went to sleep she must read them a page from one of Shakespeare's plays and a page from the Protestant Bible even if she didn't understand all of the words. KAtie did that exactly when she had Francie and Neely (Francie's Little Brother).

A lot happens in this book but it's a grat book. I wait to see what happens next!