Francie loves to read. She remembers when her eyes fell on a word and, for the first time ever, it meant something. She’d been learning all her letters, their sounds, and how they fit together. Then one day “mouse” jumped off the page—and “horse” and “running” and countless more. “From that time on,” recounts the narrator in Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows i…
© 2026 Joel J. Miller · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Substack is the home for great culture


