A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the story of one girl’s coming of age in the 19teens. Set, as the title suggests, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the first two decades of the twentieth century, this rich novel focuses on the story of Francie Nolan. It is also, however, the story of her parents and their love, her aunts and grandmother, her neighborhood at large. Ultimately this moving coming-of-age novel explores the American promise that poor American kids, the grandkids of immigrants perhaps, might realize and the magic of that promise.