Explore "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
FRANCIE expected great things from school. Since vaccination taught her instantly the difference between left and right, she thought that school would bring forth even greater miracles. She thought she'd come home from school that first day knowing how to read and write. But all she came home with was a bloody nose gained by an older child slamming her head down on the stone rim of the water trough when she had tried to drink from the faucets that did not gush forth soda water after all.
Francie was disappointed because she had to share a seat and desk (meant only for one) with another girl. She had wanted a desk to herself. She accepted with pride the pencil the monitor passed out to her in the morning and reluctantly surrendered it to another monitor at three o'clock.