The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
James McBride, 2023
Historical fiction Contemporary fictionLiterary fiction
A small Pennsylvania town, a grocery store, and the Black and Jewish neighbors who refuse to let a deaf boy be taken.
Feels like wonder and hope. About family, morality and war.
A page from the book
The care it takes to make a question visible.
“You got a hole in your head, son? Was you riding the train this morning? Was that you?” Nate gently touched one of the boy’s hands. They were freezing. He placed the lamp high, holding it so that his lips could be seen. The boy had not been born deaf. An accident killed his hearing. A stove blew up in his mother’s kitchen when he was nine. Killed his eyes and ears. His eyes came back. His ears did not. But he could read lips. Nate held the lamp next to his face so Dodo could see them. James McBride.McBride grew up in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, one of twelve siblings; this novel returns to the town of his childhood.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store like?
- Feels like wonder and hope. About family, morality and war.
- What should I read after The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store?
- If you liked The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, try The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune), Number the Stars (Lois Lowry) and First-Time Caller (B.K. Borison).
A taste of the feed
The difference between the posters on the wall and the laughter behind the door.
He was about to leave through the front door when he paused at a bright burst of laughter coming from the kitchen. Against his better judgment, he tiptoed toward the sound. He passed by posters nailed to the walls, the same messages that hung in all the DICOMY-sanctioned orphanages he’d been to. They showed smiling children below such legends as WE’RE HAPPIEST WHEN WE LISTEN TO THOSE IN CHARGE and A QUIET CHILD IS A HEALTHY CHILD and WHO NEEDS MAGIC WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR IMAGINATION?
The House in the Cerulean Sea · T.J. Klune
What it means when a five-year-old stops seeing the soldiers at all.
As they turned to enter their building, both girls looked straight ahead, toward the door. They did it purposely so that they would not catch the eyes or the attention of two more soldiers, who stood with their guns on this corner as well. Kirsti scurried ahead of them through the door, chattering about the picture she was bringing home from kindergarten to show Mama. For Kirsti, the soldiers were simply part of the landscape, something that had always been there, on every corner, as unimportant as lampposts, throughout her remembered life.
Number the Stars · Lois Lowry
The strange joy of watching someone you almost lost be happy again.
They keep sending me pictures of themselves in front of various state signs. Beaming on the beach in Delaware, wrapped in parkas. Matching threadbare baseball caps in New York. My mom clutching a bag of gummy worms to her chest in front of a half-bent sign in New Jersey, a knit beanie over the hair that’s just started to regrow. Their faces lined with untethered joy.
First-Time Caller · B.K. Borison
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