A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

KickinLibrarian@evpl — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:04:00 GMT

When I went home a little while back, I saw a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in my little sister's room. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I went home and started reading the battered copy on my bookshelf. I don't know how many times I have read this book (almost as many as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird), but I always come away feeling like I have just read it for the first time.

Betty Smith published A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in 1943 and it was an immediate success. The story focuses around Francie Nolan, a young girl growing up in the early twentieth century with a fun-loving, but alcoholic father, realistic mother, and younger brother. Struggling against poverty and isolation from her peers, Francie finds solace in the library where she plans to read every book in the collection. The story continues over the next five years of Francie's life. Her struggle to gain her mother's love, her desire to better her own life, and finding love are all issues that Francie encounters growing up in Brooklyn.

I don't want to give away too much of the story for those of you that haven't read it because A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a book that I believe everyone should read at least once. Francie and her family have struggles that many people can relate to, and you can't help but wish to be the friend Francie so desperately needed. If you are wandering around the library one day searching for something to read, remember to grab a copy of this book.

"Are the Rich Necessary?" by Lewis Hunter

MediaPhile@evpl — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:50:00 GMT

I picked this up because I thought it might serve as an Economics 101 substitute. The subtitle is great economic arguments and how they reflect our personal values and each chapter asks a questions and answers it with statements from economists throughout history.

Questions include these: Are the rich compatible with democracy? Are private profits necessary? Are there alternatives to the profit system? Does the profit system glorify greed? You can even go to the author's website afterward and cost your vote (as well as read reviews).

So are the rich necessary? Hunter argues that they are because they are the only ones with surplus cash that can be used for investment in new business and growth - the rest of us are essentially living from pay check to pay check. He does, however, admit that the really poor and disadvantaged might need some assistance and his solution is expansion of the non-profit sector. He avers that non-profits, like the free market system itself, are much more benign than government and could ultimately do a better job. He even advocates a change to the tax structure whereby individuals or corporations could redirect some of their tax dollars to non-profits.

Food for thought! Are the rich necessary?

Books Blog : reviews, poor

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

"Are the Rich Necessary?" by Lewis Hunter