“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”
The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. Descriptions are provided by the publisher, unless otherwise noted. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
Fiction: “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Penn. were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe. As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive.
“How to Know a Person”
Nonfiction: “How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen” by David Brooks
Drawing from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history and education, one of the nation’s leading writers and commentators helps us become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen.
Youth: “The Artivist” by Nikkolas Smith
Motivated by the realization of global inequities, a young boy embraces his dual identities as an artist and activist, becoming an “Artivist” to make a difference by using his viral
“The Artivist”
mural as a catalyst for positive change.
