Thirteen-year-old Binti has a comfortable life, living with her father and two older siblings in Blantyre, the largest city in Malawi. She receives a great deal of attention as the child star of a local radio program called Gogo’s Family . Her father has his own business called the Heaven Shop, where he makes and sells coffins. Business is good for him, due to the large number of people in Blantyre who are dying from AIDS-related complications. When he himself contracts AIDS and dies, Binti and her sister are sent to live with an aunt and uncle who treat them like servants. Binti eventually escapes and goes to live with her grandmother, who lives in a rural area and who has taken in many AIDS orphans. Through Binti’s eyes, Deborah Ellis shows the devastating effects AIDS has had in Africa in a forceful novel based on interviews and research she did in Malawi and Zambia. (Ages 10–14)

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