#A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

[stayhomereading]

I think I've read this once a year since I was in the fourth grade. Opening it feels like coming home.

[macrolit]

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith

[mugueteva]

the eva essentials

[citizenscreen]

Elia Kazan’s A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN had its world premiere in New York City 80 years ago today, #OnThisDay in 1945.

[winters-on-the-wing]

giving the marauders some of my favorite movies:

remus -> a tree grows in brooklyn. a black and white movie just feels so very remus to me. and the idea that it’s about a broken family, from the perspective of a bright but painfully shy girl whose only great comfort is ripped away from her in her early youth, it just screams remus to me. i feel like remus would let himself cry to this movie. and the idea of pain and hurt followed by forgiveness is something that i think remus would resonate with.

sirius -> gypsy (1962). i just feel like it would speak to him. the debonair old broadway aesthetic. the classy dancing mixed with the raunchiness of the strip teasing. i feel like he would identify heavily with gypsy rose lee, someone who was forcibly hardened by the world, and then was confused when she faced the consequences of abandoning the very same people who shunned her. i like how most of the characters are unapologetically assholes. it’s very refreshing and very sirius.

james -> beasts of the southern wild. i just love the thoughtfulness of the movie, the air of curiosity and wonder. the way it portrays such heavy themes through the lens of an extremely young child. and the general energy of it, with the beautiful nature scenes and the grit. it’s the kind of thing that nobody would expect james to like, but he fucking adores it and sees every strange abstract element as the conscious choice that it is. it really activates the restless genius inside him that he usually refuses to set free. i also just see so much of hushpuppy’s personality in james. i can’t explain it.

peter -> little women (2019). i just think the vibe and aesthetic fit peter really well, and i like that none of the characters are viewed as perfect or evil. that gray area represents peter really well i think. everyone does everything for a reason. i’m not sure which character he would relate to more, but part of me is thinking amy or laurie. i think peter would relate a lot to that “always an angel, never a god” thing that amy has going on, or laurie’s impulsiveness, his intrinsic selfishness. i don’t like how timothee performed laurie but he’s a hard character to mess up. the concept of him is still there enough for me to see peter in it.

[bookish-charm]

Classics: book haul, thrift store edition

[the-elusive-soleil]

Reblog if your villain/heroine ship that people keep side-eyeing fits the Francie Nolan Approval Criteria as established by Betty Smith in 1943:

Ship getting together would solve central conflict

Villain willing to go to a whole lot of trouble to win heroine

Villain is around while the canon love interest is off doing Hero Things

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[berrygoth]

A few years ago I went to a flea market and a vendor gave me this book for free. It's from 1943 and I'm oddly in love with it.

[can-i-quote-you-on-that]

'Yet you must teach the child that these things are so.' 'Why? When I, myself, do not believe?' 'Because,' explained Mary Rommely simply, 'the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.' 'The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed.' 'That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.'

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

[quotelr]

Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

[rubypomegranates]

"Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way."

Betty Smith "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"

[rwpohl]

call northside 777, henry hathaway 1948

[hazy-siren]

9 BOOKS I PLAN TO READ IN 2025

Thank you for tagging me @hvrrycameron 💕

I'm tagging @harrenhals @flowersandfashion @astremistry @cloudy-apple-juice @sparklestheunicorn @theannotatedbook @balljointedfairy if you want to 😊

[motif-motifs]

Currently reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

Published: 1943

Time period: Early 20th century

[cirr0stratus]

look what i found at the my local vintage shop today