Register 15 Seats Remaining
The book to be discussed is "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store" by James McBribe. Adults are invited to this monthly book discussion program. Book lists with titles selected by group members are available at the Library. New members are always welcome.
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBribe is available as a print book, a large print book, an audiobook CD, a pre-loaded audiobook, an e-book, and as a downloadable audiobook in The Library's collection.
"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." ~ Riverhead Books, Publisher.
A new 16,000-square-foot branch for Warren Township opened in 1974, positioned adjacent to Lakeside Elementary School and northeast of Warren Central High School. After a fire in 1979, the branch closed for seven months. A $1.1 million renovation completed in 2016 was the first major renovation since the Warren Branch originally opened.