 Hi, I'm Kathy Cormier. I work at the Maine Library Teen Center. A book I love is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I first read this book when I was 12 years old. My mom said I would love this book. Of course I didn't believe her. I thought I'd hate it. But this time, and of course many times since then, my mom was right. It is a story about being a human, told through the eyes of a girl named Francie. Betty Smith just captures everything what it's like to live in an urban community. Learning about yourself, learning about your place in the world, and also there's a lot of drama. It's not a tidy little world she lives in. She has a dad who's a drunk, a mom who does all the work. But one thing that she really loves and what resonated with me about this book, of course being a librarian now, what really got me about this book was that Francie was a girl who just loved to read, which transports her from her poor, squalid existence to a world of beauty and passion and possibility. I love this book. There's a lot of life and love in this book. I think you'll love A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith as much as I do.