The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

The discovery of a skeleton in 1972 unearths the secrets of Chicken Hill, a neighborhood where Jewish and Black neighbors once risked everything to protect a vulnerable boy.

In 1972, workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, find a skeleton at the bottom of a well—a discovery that reopens the long-buried secrets of Chicken Hill. Decades earlier, this dilapidated neighborhood was a sanctuary where Jewish immigrants and Black families lived side-by-side, sharing the hardships of the margins. At the heart of it all was Chona Ludlow, the stubborn, big-hearted owner of the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, and her husband Moshe. When the state comes for Dodo, a young deaf orphan, the community must unite to hide him, risking everything to protect a boy the rest of the world has discarded. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a soulful story about the power of community and the lengths people will go to for those they love.