The Heaven Shop [Paperback]

Deborah Ellis (Author)

Book Description

There is a lion in our village, and it is carrying away our children.

At her father's funeral, Binti's grandmother utters the words that no one in Malawi wants to hear. Binti's father and her mother before him, dies of AIDS. Binti, her sister, and brother are separated and sent to the home of relatives who can barely tolerate their presence. Ostracized by their extended family, the orphans are treated like the lowest servants. With her brother far away and her sister wallowing in her own sorrow, Binti can hardly contain her rage. She, Binti Phirim, was once a child star of a popular radio program. Now she is scraping to survive. Binti always believed she was special, now she is nothing but a common AIDS orphan.

Binti Phiri is not about to give up. Even as she clings to hope that her former life will be restored, she must face a greater challenge. If she and her brother and sister are to reunited, Binti Phiri will have to look outside herself and find a new way to be special.

Compelling and uplifting, The Heaven Shop, is a contemporary novel that puts a very real face on the African AIDS pandemic, which to-date has orphaned more than 11 million African children. Inspired by a young radio performer the author met during her research visit to Malawi, Binti Phiri is a compelling character that readers will never forget.

Awards and Nominations:

• Ontario Library Association's Golden Oak Award winner 2006
• Winner of the 2005 Jane Addams Children's Book Award in the category of Honor Books for Older Children
• Shortlisted for the 2006 Alberta Children's Choice Book Award
• A Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Awards Honour Book for 2006
• Foreword Magazine 2004 Book of the Year Award finalist
• A Children's Africana Book Awards (CABA) 2005 Honor Book for Older Readers
• A Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice 2005
• Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award for Young Adult/Middle Reader Books finalist
• Red Maple Book Award nominee 2005

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-9–When 13-year-old Binti Phiri's coffin-making father dies, a grandmother she hardly knows says what no one in Malawi likes to admit: the man, like his wife, died of AIDS. Now orphaned, Binti and her siblings are sent to relatives far from home. A Cinderella-like existence with an uncle whose family ostracizes them and steals their money proves so intolerable that her older sister runs away. Binti, too, escapes and makes her way to her grandmother's village. There she discovers her Gogo surrounded by children, cousins and pretend cousins, all dealing with the effects of the epidemic. A local AIDS activist eventually finds Binti's brother, in jail, and her sister, working as a prostitute. Reunited, the young people open their own coffin shop. The author's travel in the area informs her work, but the message, though important, threatens to overwhelm the story. Binti is a well-developed character, but the others and the events of their lives seem to have been introduced in service to plot; they don't come alive the way the Afghans do in Ellis's "Breadwinner" trilogy (Groundwood) or the way the AIDS victims and their relatives do in Alan Stratton's Chanda's Secret (Annick, 2004). Readers with an interest in faraway places won't mind, though; they will cheer as Binti, self-centered and self-important when life is good, learns through adversity and through the model of her grandmother to think and behave more generously. Teachers and librarians looking for fiction about sub-Saharan Africa will find this title a useful addition.–Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. Like Allan Stratton's Chanda's Secrets [BKL Jl 04], but for a younger audience, this is a poignant story of a child caught up in the AIDS crisis in southern Africa. Binti, 13, lives in a city in Malawi, attends a private church school, and stars in a weekly radio show. Her mother is dead, and then her father dies. No one talks about why until her tough grandmother, Gogo, announces that they died of AIDS. Binti is taken in by cruel relatives, her sister becomes a prostitute, and her brother lands in prison, but they finally reunite with Gogo in a poor rural community. The plot is contrived, and Binti speaks like a Western child at times. But Ellis, who has written about children in crisis in Afghanistan, Israel, and Palestine, and visited Malawi, creates a vivid sense of the place and characters that are angry, kind, brave, and real. The facts about AIDS--the statistics, denial, discrimination, and ignorance--drive the story. Proceeds from book sales go to UNICEF. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 186 pages
• Publisher: Fitzhenry and Whiteside; 1 edition (October 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1554550866
• ISBN-13: 978-1554550869
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #730,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis, April 16, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Heaven Shop (Jane Addams Honor Book (Awards)) (Hardcover)

This book is about a girl Binti, living in Malawi in Africa. Her mother died from a disease called Aids. She comes a poor family. She has a brother Kwasi, sister Junnie and her father in her family Every Saturday she goes to her radio studio and earns some money for the family. Her father runs a coffin shop, which is called "The Heaven Shop."

When her father dies of Aids she has only enough money to pay for his funeral. But when her grandmother Gogo says that her father died of Aids she is treated badly by all her relatives. Her whole family is split apart and Binti vows that she will find her brother who as been sent away to their Aunt. But from now on Binti is sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle who are incredibly rude and obnoxious and will not go near her just in case she might have Aids. Their children play horrible tricks on her. She gets hit with a fly swatter almost every day. "No!" she said that was enough so Binti and her sister decide to run away. But her sister has to find work and Binti has to go on her own to Grandmother Gogo's house.

Binti has to find her way to safety but without her sister or her brother. It's very hard for her and she has to face many challenges. When she gets to grandmother Gogo's house she meets a girl who has Aids. She didn't get treated differently because of her positive attitude and she wouldn't let herself feel different to anyone else. So I think the moral of the story is no matter how different the person may look or if they have a disease or anything that makes them different you should always treat them the same
"Treat others the way you would like to be treated."

My favorite quote in this book was from grandmother Gogo it is
"In the old days, when there were still lions around, if a lion came into our village and carry away our young, we did not keep silent! If we were silent it would keep eating our children we had to make noise. We banged pots and yelled, there is a lion in the village! Then we could get rid of the lion and save our children. There is a lion in our village now. It's called AIDS. It carries away our children and our adults."





This is a very gripping book and it is very intense you will never want to put it down. It carries you away to another world. Here we are thinking that a holiday is fun and there they are thinking that getting some food is amazing! When you compare your life to theirs it makes you think how lucky you are and it makes you appreciate your life and the world around you.

How would you feel if you had AIDS and you were treated differently to others? I can tell you that. I would feel awful. I would feel as though I've been thrown into a ditch and left there. But like Binti and Memory I would pick myself up and carry on and not let myself or anyone make me feel different or be treated differently.

By: Rima (New Zealand)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Amazing Book!!!, April 30, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Heaven Shop (Jane Addams Honor Book (Awards)) (Hardcover)

This book is about a girl named Binti. Her father owns a shop called the Heaven Shop. Her mother died of a disease called Aids. Binti works for a radio show called Gogo's family. then her father dies of Aids. Her sister and her brother loose everything. Her sister and Binti go to their Uncle's,where they work in the bar that they own. Their brother on the other hand got to their Aunts where he gets caught stealing and gets sent to jail.He only stole the food because they were starving him, he was better feed in the jail.Everyhting goes to their releatives, they manage to save alot of money and then of course they find it. Binti and her sister escape and got in search for their grandmother, Gogo. Her sister takes of elsewhere. Later she comes back HIV positive. Binti meets a girl her age Miracle that has AIDS and is still strong. She even has a baby with AIDS. in the end they all get united. t didn't matter that her sister was HIV positive and that their parents both die of AIDS. When you read this book it will take you on an adventure that discovers that it doesn't matter if you have AIDS or your HIV positive, just live your life to the fullest because you never know when it might end. Your still the same person inside whether you have a disease or not.Trust me you will not want to put this book down i know i didn't.Go ahead take a chance read it it will truly change the way you think about something.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sufferings of a real character, February 5, 2005

By 

Oxzillia Schmitt - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heaven Shop (Jane Addams Honor Book (Awards)) (Hardcover)

In this book you actually feel like you know the main character, Binti. In some of Deborah Ellis's other books the characters are wooden, without faults, without qualities. However Binti was so much like me that I really connected with the things she did.

This story is about Binti, a young girl in Africa. She lives a wonderful life. She is one of the stars of a radio show, she has lots of friends, she loves her father and two siblings, everything is perfect. Untill her father dies of AIDS. Binti's world disintegrates around her. Her part in the radio show is taken away, her cruel relatives grab all of her family's possesions and worst of all, she and her sister Junie are separated from their brother, Kwasi. The relatives they have to live with are hideously mean and make them work for their keep and tell their children not to touch them because there was AIDS in their family. Binti runs away and goes to live with her Grandmother but life is hard there too. She has to look after starving children and cope with hearing a new girl play her part on the radio show.

I like this book because it really expresses the foolish discrimination of people against those with AIDS and the hardships of having your family taken from you. I think Deborah Ellis is a wonderful writer and a wonderful person because she gives all of her royalties to UNICEF. I think everyone should read this book. It will show you how lucky you really are.