A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Those of us who love the written word for the magic it brings by taking us to centuries in which we cannot live, to people who we can never know and ideas which do not come from our brains, will always read books and talk about them with friends. Voila – a book club!
Our book club started about 2-1/2 years, or 30 adventures ago. We said it wouldn’t be about food but only the book. Consequently, it has been very much about food, (some souls just have hospitality in their DNA.) In the winter we meet in our homes but in the summer the temptations of our local restaurants overcome the hospitality gene and we like to sample what is out there.
Reading tastes within our club are eclectic, and that is part of the charm! One month we may be reading childhood favorites like “Anne of Green Gables” and the next selection might be “All the Light We Cannot See” from The New York Times bestseller list.
The last book was the classic, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” Our host welcomed us to her home with a table setting of mismatch china, day-old bread, hot coffee, a couple of apples and a simple rice pudding, all of which were the Spartans’ staples for a meal of the girl and her family in our book.
Our conversation circled through a lot of the topics which Betty Smith depicted in her characters: alcoholism, attempted rape, bad schools, good schools, promiscuousness, extreme poverty, parental love and parental coldness. All the circles led back to the saving grace of the main character, and it was her love of reading.
That love saved her from despair and elevated her from a life of continued poverty. If you haven’t read the book, you are missing a treat. Some schools have it on their reading lists.
As September, the traditional back-to-school month all over America draws to a close; I want to think my first-grade teacher for opening the magic of reading to me so many years ago.
Thank you to all the teachers today who are struggling to gain the attention of all our children who want to learn or don’t. It isn’t a thankless task but is one of the hardest jobs I know.
Take heart because you may be nurturing a child who will be like the tree growing in Brooklyn in the cracks of the concrete. Your tree may be pushing through the dirt in Wildwood Crest, Dennis Township, Villas or Middle Township. You may never know what struggles that child has to overcome but you as a teacher or giving him sunshine and water to make him flourish in giving him the gift of reading; few gifts are as life-changing as that.
My particular encouragement to our niece Amanda Hall as she is teaching her first class as a pre-K teacher, and our daughter Anna-Faith Mauck as a returning teacher of second graders. Have a great year! (And don’t let the little rascals do you in!)
Patricia Hall
From the Bible:  The joy of the Lord is our strength. Nehemiah 8:10