When I read this book I kept shaking my head. The story sounded so much like my own. My family circumstances and location (ha ha) of course were different. We sucked on pickled cucumbers when we were hungry, we sold paper and metal scraps for change and buy broken hard candy to suck on etc.
It was such an interesting book. The reviews on Amazon were really good, too.
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old.
1 comment:
Okay, so I was browsing through your blog to find a good book to read and came across this one. This is one of my favorite books of all time. My mom gave it to me when I was around eight, and it was the first book I really involved myself in--I alternated between crying and wanting to throw it against the wall.
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