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A collaboration with columnist Myron Medcalf, the Mary Ann Key Book Club uses reading as a catalyst for intercultural conversations around understanding and addressing past and current injustices that impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
For our 2025 season, we have selected the book, “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” by local author Junauda Petrus.
By Junauda Petrus
Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus’s bold and lyrical debut, “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both. Junauda Petrus’s debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.
Print copies of the book and immediate access to the ebook and downloadable audiobook are available from HCL starting on February 1st.
Junauda Petrus is a Minneapolis creative activist, writer, playwright, and multi-dimensional performance artist. Her work centers around Black wildness, futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, spectacle and shimmer. Her debut novel, “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” received the 2020 Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award.
Various dates and locations
Learn more and register online.
Join your neighbors in a discussion of our 2025 season selection: The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 6:30pm
Minneapolis Central Library
Register to attend in-person.
Register to watch the Zoom livestream.
Join the Mary Ann Key Book Club for an exclusive evening featuring Junauda Petrus. Petrus will be joined in conversation by Star Tribune columnist and book club partner Myron Medcalf. The conversation will conclude with a Q&A and book signing with the author. Media partner: Star Tribune. Sponsor: Friends of the Hennepin County Library.
Saturday, April 26, 12:30pm
Two Rivers High School, 1897 Delaware Ave, Mendota Heights, MN
For teens. Connect with Junauda and engage in activities centered around the book at Teen Lit Con, an event where YA authors, books, teens, and fun collide. The free event runs 10am-3pm and is open to the public, but the event and activities are focused on teens. The goal is to give teens the opportunity to meet authors, learn about writing and publishing, and enjoy the literary fun. All readers of YA literature are welcome, but we want teens to feel that this event is for them.
Replay past Mary Ann Key Book Club programs on Hennepin County Library's YouTube channel.
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The book club was inspired by a Star Tribune column written by Myron Medcalf – the great-great-great-grandson of Mary Ann Key.
“I’m honored to partner with Hennepin County Library to launch the Mary Ann Key Book Club, named after the matriarch of my family, who was enslaved in Georgia in the 1850s. Purchased for $1,000 at the age of 14, Mary Ann Key persevered. Her body was in bondage, but slavery never stole the freedom of her heart, mind and soul. This book club is about focusing on the truths of the past, our challenges in the present and the possibilities of the future…” – Myron Medcalf
This program is supported by Friends of the Hennepin County Library. Their generous financial support is helping to provide greater access to print and eBook copies of the featured books. Media partner: Star Tribune.