Nostalgic Literature

I was alone and scared most of my childhood. My parents were figures of authority, scary and emotionally unavailable. My sister was lost in her own fear. I remember that day that I realized letters formed words and words formed sentences so clearly. I was way too old for reading comprehension to be a new skill, but there you have it. The cat sits on the mat means a fuzzy four legged creature is on an item on the floor. Anne of Green Gables, Jo in Little Women, and Sara in The Little Princess were all characters that spoke to me then, strong girls who persevered through hard times. Their hard times were different than my hard times, but they made it. And so could I.

But Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the one character I still reach out to when times get tough, when feelings of despair wash over me, and I need comfort. She’s me. She’s hard-working, smart, and sometimes accidentally flighty. She wishes her parents paid more attention to her. She loves her siblings, but doesn’t really understand them anymore than they understand her. She's not perfect - she's far from perfect. She reads to escape, she writes to figure things out for herself, and she does what it takes to make life go on. Francie Nolan is my hero.

Francie Nolan makes A Tree Grows in Brooklyn my favorite book. Apparently the character is semi-autobiographical and if this is the case, I’m so sorry Betty Smith had such a rough life, but I’m so happy she wrote it down for me. It's a book that changed my life. It's a book I can never forget.