The Book Shop Clerk

Some kindnesses are so quiet that nobody has to say thank you.

Hobart, New York, is a small town with seven bookshops, and one wet October afternoon a silent eleven-year-old boy walks into the fifth of them. Nico Lorenzo has a canvas bag, a borrowed coat, a hunger to read everything he can find, and a lifetime's practice at not being noticed.

Behind the counter of Aleman's stands Marlena Salazar. She sees him, and she chooses to say nothing.

What follows is a friendship built from burnt toast, a three-legged stool, a policy that doesn't exist, and a great many books that are only ever accidentally damaged. It is a story about the people who hold a door open, and the ones who finally walk through it. It is also about the long, strange roads that love takes to get home.

Told by a narrator who is closer to the story than he first lets on, The Book Shop Clerk will make you laugh, break your heart, and send you straight to the nearest bookshop, with a very good reason to stay a while.

Reading is free. It is the policy of the shop.

Why it matters now: Over 400,000 children in the United States are in foster care. This novel puts one of them at the centre of a story that is full of hope rather than pity. It celebrates independent bookshops and the quiet power of an adult who simply makes room for a child.

For readers of: The Book Thief, A Man Called Ove, The House in the Cerulean Sea, and anyone who has ever hidden in a library.