This month we will be discussing The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. For more information or to join this group, please contact Beka Castagna at castagnar@chesterfield.gov.
Book Summary: In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing development, the last thing they expected to uncover was a human skeleton. Who the skeleton was and how it got buried there were just two of the long-held secrets that had been kept for decades by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side, sharing ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.
AGE GROUP: | Adult |
EVENT TYPE: | Book Discussion Groups |
With many local schools nearby, Clover Hill Library serves more children and teens than any other library in the system. To improve reading skills for children, the library hosts registered therapy dogs from PUP READers each month. The library’s meeting spaces are a popular location for various local groups and organizations to connect and share ideas. Clover Hill Library is a learning destination for everyone.
