Other editions of book A tree grows in Brooklyn,

A "Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is a 1943 novel written by Betty Smith. The story focuses on an impoverished but aspirational third-generation-American adolescent girl and her ethnically-blended family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City during the first two decades of the 20th century. The book was an immense success. The main metaphor of the book is the hardy Tree of Heaven, native to China and Taiwan, now considered invasive, and common in the vacant lots of New York City.

Named one of the books of the century by the New York Public Library, this is the profoundly moving classic about a young girl coming of age at the turn of the century. Born in 1901 in the slums of Brooklyn, Francie Nolan has grown up under the burden of suffering that is the lot of the great city's poor. Romantic like her father, an Irish singing waiter, yet pragmatic like her mother, a housecleaner and fierce survivor, Francie uses her imagination and tenacity to thrive in the world in spite of these harsh conditions. First published in 1943, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn created a stir in genteel society with its frank descriptions of poverty's squalor. But the book's rich humor and pathos and its wealth of unforgettable characters have ensured its place in American literature.