When Francie's father died, something in me collapsed. How was this book, with all its reality and sadness, different from Walk Two Moons and the other problem novels I've read? When I closed the book for the night, I trained myself to avert my eyes from the author's name. I preferred to think only of the narrator, who was keen and generous, somehow, and all of the characters, whom I felt I knew. I did not like that her name was on the cover of the book, because its presence was a reminder that the book wasn't real, and had been made by one, mere person. Sometimes I would close the book and stare at the name of the author, Betty Smith.

And the immensity of love, the tragedy intertwined with the love a daughter has toward a doomed father, and the love-but scary, unacknowledged dread, too-toward a mother. Through this widening, clear lens, I glimpsed my own life, and the presence of alcohol in my family too, even though in my house the bottles were kept hidden. I was guided along the landscape of this family life by the narrator, who was alert and wise, and never skipped over what we (Francie and I) felt. Through these descriptions we came to know the presence of alcohol. We only knew how he acted when he drank, and when he was sleeping it off, and how kind and grand he was toward his daughter, and how drawn-in and bitter his wife was. She loved her father most of all, her father who was an alcoholic, although no such word was used in the book. Francie was alone like me, but in some way she wasn't lonely nor was I, really: We shared a kind of pioneer quality, drinking in life beyond our own small apartments. Up until these pages, I never imagined that anyone else thought about such things: the faces and hands of the shopkeepers, the personality of candy, the interesting way coins felt in your hand. I was in the world of Brooklyn, which was so remarkably like my own street in New York City, and Francie was 11 just like me, and she walked through her neighborhood and noticed the secret things I noticed. I picture myself on my bed, curled around the book, or sitting up, my mouth dry from nerves. It turned out to be just the right book for me: a battered copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. One Saturday when I was 11 or 12, I asked my father to recommend a book for me, and he came back some time later, after having given it obvious careful thought. AFT resources for organizing and back to school programs.Safe and welcoming public schools for all.

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A tree grows in brooklyn