treegrowscover Lots of New Year’s resolutions have already been trashed, but there are ways to recover—basically by resolving to do something for which, so far in 2011, there has been no opportunity to do … like, let’s saaaay … attending all 12 meetings of the Bixby Knolls Literary Society. The first one of those isn’t until Jan. 12.

That gives you six days to read “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn,” the 1943 novel by Betty Smith, which was such an immediate and immense success that in 1945 it was made into a movie—the first feature directed by Elia Kazan—that starred James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell and Peggy Ann Garner.

Set in the early decades of the 20th century, “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their Irish immigrant parents—an often drunk-and-unemployed father and a floor-scrubbin’ mother—who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. When daddy dies, leaving mommy pregnant, the battle against overwhelming odds begins for Francie.

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN • BIXBY KNOLLS LITERARY SOCIETY • EXPO • 4321 ATLANTIC AVE. • LONG BEACH 90807 • INFO@BIXBYKNOLLSINFO.COM • 7 P.M. • FREE, INCLUDING REFRESHMENTS