Did I mention that A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was great?  Because it is.

I read somewhere that A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of those books in which nothing happens but absolutely everything happens.  I found that to be so true and so wonderful!  It’s a coming of age story about Francie Nolan as her family struggles with poverty, alcoholism, and the realities of life in the tenements of Brooklyn, New York in the early part of the century.  But it’s about more than just Francie.  It’s a portrait of three generations of an Irish-American family, their hopes and their dreams at a time of life when no thought is given to sending young children down the market for a penny loaf of bread.

Frances is the ultimate strong woman character and I loved every minute that I spent with her.

Popular quotes from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:

The one tree in Francie’s yard was neither a  pine nor a hemlock.  It had pointed leaves which grew along green swithces which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas.  Some people called it the Tree of Heaven.  No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky.  It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that few out of cement.  It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.   – Chapter 1

Francie is entitled to one cup each meal like the rest. If it makes her feel better to throw it way rather than to drink it, all right. I think it’s good that people like us can waste something once in a while and get the feeling of how it would be have lots of money and not have to worry about scrounging. - Chapter ?

She was all these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day.  It was something that had been into her and her only – the something different from anyone else in the two families.  It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life – the one different tihng such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike. – Chapter 8

Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words!  – Chapter 22.

From that time on, the worldwas hers for the reading.  She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends.  Books became her friends and there was one for every mood .  . . On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.   – Chapter 22.

Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing.  What she wrote was of little consequence.  What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction.

 If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar. – Chapter 26.

Growing up spoiled a lot of things. – Chapter 28

Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman.  Chapter 29

Francie wished adults would stop telling her that. Already the load of thanks in the future was weighing her down. She figured she’d have to spend the best years of her womanhood hunting up people to tell them that they were right and to thank them. – Chapter 39

We’re too much alike to understand each other because we don’t even understand our own selves. Papa and I were two different persons and we understood each other. Mama understands Neeley because he’s different from her.  Chapter 44

Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.  Chapter 48

Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you’d give your life to spare them.  Chapter 53

A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grow towards the sky again. Annie, the fir tree, that the Nolans had cherished with waterings and manurings, had long since sickened and died. But this tree in the yard–this tree that men chopped down…this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump–this tree had lived! – Chapter 56

Have you read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?  No?  What are you waiting for?

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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is October’s fiction book club selection at Rich Women Sisterhood, which I’m excited to be your host and moderator.  This is unlike any book club you’re familiar with because we’ll be discussing the book via a tele-conference call on October 27th at 6:30 MST.  I’d love to discuss this book with you so now would be a perfect time to read it.  In fact, I’d love you on the call even if you haven’t read it!  Find out all the details to participate.  If you’re already not a member of Rich Women Sisterhood make sure to register and then register for the book club discussion so I know how many people I have on the call.  Can’t wait to talk with you about this one in person!

George and Lennie are two itinerant farm workers traveling from job to job in Salinas Valley, California during the 1930’s.  What Lennie lacks in whits he makes up in brute strength and George who is kindhearted and sympathetic watches out for Lennie at a time when nobody else will.  Both have dreams of one day owning a little piece of land.  This dreams occupies Lennie’s every thought, that is, when he’s not thinking of mice, rabbits, or puppies and other soft things to pet.  While Lennie’s strength is admired in the field, it’s something to be feared because he doesn’t know the limits of his own strength.  That strength and his mental disability come together in a tragic way and forces George to make a decision that will affect the both of them forever.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time reading this one although I already knew where the plot was going having read the book and watched the movie once before.  I couldn’t help but be really nervous.  The writing is wonderful, the foreshadowing executed to perfection, and the relationship between these two men is described in such a way that you can’t help but love them.

Steinbeck is an amazing author and I remember with fondness the period during high school were I vowed I would read every John Steinbeck novel at my library.  I can still picture the aisle where his books were shelved.

As soon as I finished reading this one, I pulled out the movie, which I enjoyed.  I was happy to discover that it followed the book exactly, down to the dialogue.   You can watch the whole thing for free on IMDB.

I read Of Mice and Men during Banned Books Week and it has me wondering why people are so crazy as to point the finger at this one.  Some people just have way to much time on their hands.  As for me, I loved it and I can’t imagine a world of literature where it didn’t exist.

What’s your response to people trying to ban this book?

Briefly stated, set during the great depression in Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird is about the injustices of the world as seen through nine year old Scout’s eyes.   Through her father, brother, classmates, neighbors, and fellow townsmen, Scout learns about justice, equality, prejudice, social status, moral nature, sympathy, judgment and love.

If you haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird, what are you waiting for?  Seriously.  So glad I picked this one up again.

Quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird (because Harper Lee just says it so well):

Because I could never ask you to mind me again.  Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.  This one’s mine, I guess.  You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will:  you just hold your head high and keep those fists down.  No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat.  Try fighting with your head for a change . . . – Atticus to Scout

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.   – Atticus to Jeb

What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best.  There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. -Miss Maudie

Atticus said to Jem, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds.  Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever hear Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.  “You’re father’s right,” she said.  “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.  They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”  – Scout

The witnesses for the state.have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.  Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you.  You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted around women, black or white.  But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.  – Atticus

They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.  The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. – Atticus

As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. – Atticus

If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something.  I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time.  It’s because he wants to stay inside. – Jem to Scout

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake.  But don’t make a production of it.  Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em.  – Atticus

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view–until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.-Atticus

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.  – Scout

You are too young to understand it … but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of–oh, of your father. – Miss Maudie

Have you read this one lately?  Thoughts?  On a sidenote, when I was in high school I had the pleasure of meeting Gregory Peck, who plays Atticus in the movie, at a function at the performing arts theater that I worked at.  I’m sure they made us watch the movie in high school but I can’t recall it now.  Is it worth watching?