the criteria on which such notions, and those who embrace them, should be judged. Other issues the book addresses include: Humanity vs. its environment Education Coming of age/loss of innocence Family Exploitation Love Poverty The American Dream Adaptations The book was adapted into a 1945 film directed by Elia Kazan, starring James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner, who won a Special Academy Award for Outstanding Child Actress of 1945. James Dunn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the film. William Meade Prince adapted the novel into a 1944 comic strip, distributed by King Features. George Abbott collaborated with the book's author to produce and direct the story as a 1951 Broadway musical, with music by Arthur Schwartz and choreography by Herbert Ross. The show starred Shirley Booth, Marcia van Dyke, and 12-year-old Nomi Mitty (as Francie). It ran for 267 performances. A 1974 "made for television" movie adaptation, based on the film's screenplay, stars Cliff Robertson and Pamelyn Ferdin. Pop culture references Cartoons and animated film shorts A Hare Grows in Manhattan (1947) is a Merrie Melodies cartoon. At the end, Bugs Bunny shows the book to a pack of menacing dogs, whereupon they turn away from him and run to Brooklyn, presumably to urinate on the tree. The Warner Bros. Looney Tunes animated short film Scent-imental Over You (1947), featuring Pepé Le Pew, shows multiple dogs looking through a bookstore window displaying A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Literature The book was one of the most popular Armed Services Edition books shipped to American military service personnel for free during World War II. Smith said that she received ten times more fan mail from soldiers than she did from civilians. The book was originally printed as series D-117 (~50,000 copies). Demand for the novel was so high it was quickly reprinted as K-28. The protagonist in Jeannette Walls' 2005 memoir The Glass Castle makes reference to growing up reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and finding inspiration in the character of Francie Nolan. Music Jay-Z makes references to the title of the book in "Some How, Some Way" (from The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse) and "Interlude" (from The Black Album). Rapper Talib Kweli refers to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in Blackstar's track "Respiration". "A Flower Grows in Brooklyn" is the penultimate track on rapper Positive K's 1992 album, The