Friday Book Group: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

Decorah Public Library staff are hosting five book discussions in October. The groups are open to the public and newcomers are encouraged to attend. Anyone interested should call the library at 382-3717 to learn more or to reserve a book. Email ktorresdal@decorahlibrary.org to be added to any of the five groups’ email distribution lists. Funds for multiple copy sets were generously provided by Friends of Decorah Public Library.  

The Friday Book Group will meet on the 2nd floor of the library Fri. Oct. 18 at 2:00 p.m. to discuss James McBride’s “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.” 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. Chicken Hill was where Chona Ludlow lived when she ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf Black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill’s residents banded together to keep the boy safe. 

For more information, contact Tricia Crary (Friday Book Group) or Kristin Torresdal (Happy Hour, History, and Speculative Fiction Book Groups) at 563-382-3717.