City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith (1896-1972)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
New York: Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co., 1943
Ada Peluso (Trustee Emerita)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
New York: Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co., 1943
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a widely acclaimed and very moving novel set in the early-20th-century Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn. It is more than a story of childhood and family relationships—it is a story of triumph over adversity. Unlike Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, also books about children growing up, Betty Smith’s novel is for adults because of its stark realism and its authentic characterizations. The reader senses that it is an autobiographical story.
Ada Peluso (Trustee Emerita)