It's been a long time since I've read a book that made me love reading. A book that made me laugh, made me cry, really told a story. A book that I miss when I'm not reading it, with characters that I go to sleep thinking about and wake up wanting to visit again.
It's so easy to feel like you're in the story, in Brooklyn in the early 1900s, feeling the affects of the depression and poverty. To imagine yourself in the Nolan family flat, with two rooms and flowery curtains that Katie sewed herself from the fabric of her old dress. The writing is so all encompassing, you can smell the coffee they brew and reheat and taste the hard sourdough bread they eat with it. And get excited when they have hot chocolate for holidays!
I know I haven't made some discovery here, and I'm merely among the millions or maybe billions who have found a friend within these pages...but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn truly is one of the best books I've ever read. Why wasn't this required reading when I was in junior high? It may have helped a transitional phase of my life!
