A TREE GROWS IN… OH, NEVER MIND
7:24 p.m.: A dozen readers gathered at a long table in the Red Bank Public Library‘s Eisner Room for a discussion of Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” a novel about childhood poverty set in the early 1900s.
When a question arose of whether stereotypes were present in the story, there was a consensus that the librarian character was unlikable. Librarian Patrice Baldino, who led the discussion, chimed in, laughing: “Yeah, the librarian. What was her problem?”