All LA County Library locations will be closed on Monday, March 25 in honor of César Chávez Day. Our digital library is open 24/7.
Due to technical updates, our catalog may be temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience.
The La Crescenta Library Virtual Book Club meets weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays from 11am - 12 pm. Please contact Marta Wiggins at mwiggins@library.lacounty.gov for your Zoom invitation to attend the book club. For adults.
Join us as we discuss The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.
Meeting Dates and Reading selections:
Tuesday April 9: Part 1: Gone: Pages 3 - 140
Tuesday April 16: Part 2: Gotten: Pages 143 - 226
Tuesday, April 23: Part 3: The Last Love: Pages 229 - 376
Tuesday, April 30: Epilogue: Pages 377 - end of book.
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 neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
As these characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins 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. --from the publisher
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Books, Poetry, & Writing |
TAGS: | National Library Week | Book Club |
La Crescenta Library first opened in November 1914 as the 78th branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library. The collection was first housed in a local church building, and subsequently moved several times; once into a school house, later into a local store front, and into the Sears building in 1926.
By 1932, the library had settled into a building at 3930 La Crescenta Avenue. As the population of La Crescenta grew, so to did the demand for a new building. The library found an appropriate site on the corner of Foothill Blvd and La Crescenta Ave, and opened in March of 1963.
By 2005 the population had once again outgrown the library's space, so the La Crescenta community sought a new building. Thanks to funding from Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, and Congressman David Dreier, the County of Los Angeles was able to construct an updated facility in its current location.
The building broke ground in 2007, and reopened in January 2010. The new 14,000 square foot facility, built in the style of the arts and crafts movement, features modern technology and meeting space open to the public.
