Two library books this week ~ and trees in Brooklyn

I ran over to the library to return two books and pick up two others I'd put on hold:  Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith (2001) and The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher (2005).  But I'm most likely to start reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943), which I need to read so I can provide questions for my online Book Buddies.  I did manage to finish -- and review! -- the other two books I had out (Sophomore Switch and Dream When You're Feeling Blue), and now with a long weekend because of Fall Break at Chattanooga State, I hope to catch up on both reading and sleep.  It's time.

First, an update on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  I taught my two writing classes at Chattanooga State this morning, came home tired, ate lunch, and stretched out to start reading.  The book was published in 1943, but Anna Quindlen's Foreword was copyrighted in 2001.  I flipped the pages, deciding I could read Quindlen's five pages plus the six short chapters of Book One, a mere 54 pages, but I fell asleep before finishing the first page, which has only two paragraphs!  Must be tired, huh?  I'd say so, since I napped a solid six hours.  I made supper and read all the way to the second page of the Foreword, where I found Quindlen's remarks about the tree, the one that grows in Brooklyn:

"All of this takes place in the life of Francie Nolan, who is eleven years old when her story opens in the summer of 1912, in a third-floor walk-up apartment in the shadow of the hardy urban ailanthus tree..." (page viii).

I stopped to get online and look it up.  The ailanthus tree, also known as the Tree of Heaven, is "native to Asia and northern Australia.  It was introduced into England from China in the mid-18th century as an ornamental, migrating to the United States in 1874."  I found pictures of the tree and decided to get online to share them with everybuddy (especially my Book Buddies).  So here I am at almost 8:00 in the evening, and I've managed to read a whole three-and-a-half paragraphs of the book.  The Foreword, actually.  I haven't even gotten to Francie yet.  With just under 500 pages to go, I'd better finish this post and start reading!

What about the two library books?  Never mind them.  I'll tell you about those when I start reading them.  Maybe I'll tell you after reading only a paragraph or two.