Join us for a discussion of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. This program has a hybrid format. Participate either in person or on Zoom.

Reserve the print book.
Reserve the large-type book.
Reserve the CDs.
Reserve the OverDrive eBook.
Reserve the OverDrive eAudiobook.
Request a book through interlibrary loan when all Pratt copies are checked out.

For help obtaining a copy of the book or more information about the book club, please email fic@prattlibrary.org.

"In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 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. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town's white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community — heaven and earth — that sustain us."

— publisher description

Free parking vouchers will be available to program attendees who park at the Franklin Street Garage (15 W. Franklin Street) while supplies last. Ask Pratt event staff for your parking voucher prior to or after the program.