#50: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Several months ago, I sat on the back porch of a Brooklyn restaurant and watched a girl of about 13 read this book. I bought it for my self a long time before that, but had kept it on the shelf and resolved that it was something to save for later. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, as I now know, is for girls of any age and can be read at any time. It is for the ones who dream, get hurt, find ambition, and look for happiness in dark corners. Betty Smith is able to convey feelings of loneliness and hardship without asking for sympathy, eventually proving that the human condition is actually very simple. This is the kind of reading that offers the most comfort and looking back, I can understand why the girl in the restaurant wasn’t talking to her family or touching her food. She was reading her own life and probably wondering where Brooklyn would take her.