Altadena Store Offers Books on Minorities : Literature: With its specialized selection, the Black & Latino Book Store, at 1920 N. Lake Ave., is unique in the San Gabriel Valley.

ALTADENA —  When the Black & Latino Book Store held its grand opening recently, owners Carl Crudup and Rita Dyson-Crudup treated their guests to an eclectic smorgasbord.

A table next to the cash register held pigs-in-a-blanket, anchovies, sour cream, peanuts, taquitos, wine coolers, tuna sandwiches and homemade white cake with lemon frosting.

The couple has taken the same idiosyncratic approach to stocking their bookstore.

Browsers will find biographies of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, actor Paul Robeson and back-to-Africa leader Marcus Garvey. Classics, such as “Native Son” by Richard Wright and “Sula” by Toni Morrison, also fill the shelves, as well as science fiction by Octavia Butler and the speeches of Malcolm X and W.E.B. Du Bois.

The Spanish-language selection includes books on yoga, cooking and herbs. Historical accounts of Latin America, such as “Isthmus of Tehuantepec: Mexico South” by Miguel Covarrubias, are also on hand. Spanish translations run the gamut from the pop novels of Jacqueline Susann to works by Russian author Anton Chekhov (“Tio Vania”) and the Greek poet Homer (“La Odisea”).

“All the things that deal with the soul . . . that’s what we want to fill up here,” Dyson-Crudup said.

The store, at 1920 N. Lake Ave., is unique in the San Gabriel Valley, which until the store opened two weeks ago has not had one specializing in black and Latino books. Before the store existed, African-Americans who sought volumes on black history or on black writers usually traveled to the Aquarian Bookshop in Los Angeles. Latinos made trips to Santa Monica or Los Angeles where small Spanish-language bookstores offer paperbacks and magazines.

“There are regular Caucasian bookstores that sell a little bit of Spanish books, but not like we’re doing,” Dyson-Crudup said.

Of mixed heritage--a Spanish mother and a father of Cuban and Jamaican extraction--Dyson-Crudup decided that the bookstore should explore both black and Latino culture.

“In my family there’s a rainbow of complexions,” said Dyson-Crudup, who reads some Spanish but doesn’t speak the language. “So why shouldn’t I put the whole thing out there?”

The business is a venture into new territory for Dyson-Crudup and her husband. Both have backgrounds in entertainment.

Crudup is a working actor who has appeared in movies including “The Gambler” and on television shows like “Harry O,” “The Six-Million Dollar Man,” “Beauty and the Beast” and the “Rockford Files.” He also is self-employed as a cab driver, and it is that job, with its numerous waits for passengers, that provides him with the time to pursue one of his favorite activities--reading.

“I’ll do four or five books a week,” he said. “I’ve read most of the books in the store.”

Although he is an avid reader, Crudup did not think to open a bookstore until a friend had difficulty finding a book on the Swahili language. His friend searched in bookstore after bookstore for the elusive volume, and finally asked Crudup if he had a copy in his home library. That convinced Crudup that a need existed for a specialized, minority bookstore. He plunged ahead, joining the American Booksellers Assn., doing marketing research and setting up the store in Altadena.

During the grand opening, Crudup was still unpacking books, but he stopped, puzzled, as he opened one box.

“The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets,” he said, flipping through the pages of a hefty paperback. “That ought to sell, huh?”

Dyson-Crudup, a former singer who performed in commercials and with jazz musician Lionel Hampton, takes credit for choosing many of the store’s books.

“I just sort of stock the store according to my own hunger,” she said.

The store also contains a large selection of children’s books written about black and Latino heroes and culture. Dyson-Crudup believes minority children should know about the accomplishments of their own people and should see blacks and Latinos taking major, active roles in books.

“When (black and Latino) children read the books about Caucasian children, they don’t see themselves or they can’t identify with the life style,” Dyson-Crudup said. “If children aren’t as excited about reading as they should be, it’s because they’re not placed in the books.”

Dyson-Crudup also stocks the store with ethnic gift items, such as art and jewelry from Egypt, Mexico and Africa, and black-oriented greeting cards. She also sells unusual items including collectors’ dolls and decks of playing cards, each card adorned by a different figure from black history.

The couple admits that opening such a specialized bookstore poses risks. They call the venture an “experiment” but have an almost missionary belief in the endeavor. And they think there is a future in it.

“Books are forever,” Crudup said, gesturing toward a shelf containing out-of-print editions from the 1960s. Pointing to one of the volumes, he said, “Someday, somebody will come in and ask us for this copy.”