Sandra (mycatscanread) - reviewed on 8/19/2010 + 174 more book reviews

Somehow in all the years of school and college, I had never read this book. It sat on my shelf at home for a good number of years until I finally picked it up and started to read. What a treat! This is an excellent book that is basically somewhat autobiographical in nature. The author suffered through the extreme poverty that the family in the book does. I think that's why the entire story seems so real and believable.

With a mostly absent father who drinks, hardly ever enough food to feed at first two, then three children and the mother, Katie, this family somehow makes it through some terrible years of want while living in barely liveable tenaments in Brooklyn,NY. The positive attitudes of the children, Francie, especially, and her desire to do just about anything to get an education despite having to leave school to support her family, is a lesson to us that giving up is never an option. Responsibilities must be always taken seriously, but if one works hard enough and wants something bad enough, it's possible to reach that goal.

I loved the lessons in family, grace, and helping self and others in the face of overwhelming poverty. It was well worth the time spent reading this book. It's a good picture of Brooklyn and life in the early years of the turn of the twentieth century.

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