West Oakland Library April Book Club | Sistah Scifi

**About West Oakland Library**
The Oakland Public Library is a part of the City of Oakland in California and has been in existence since 1878. They have:

• a Main Library
• seventeen branch libraries
• the Second Start Adult Literacy Program
• the Tool Lending Library
• the African-American Museum and Library at Oakland (AAMLO).
• the Oakland History Center

They offer many other services for residents of Oakland and California.They get support from a lively Friends of the Library group and by the Library Advisory Commission. They also have local Library Friends groups around the city. More at https://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/was/

**About The Stars and the Blackness Between Them **
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus's bold and lyrical debut 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.
Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she's going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor's daughter. Audre's grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won't lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. "America have dey spirits too, believe me," she tells Audre.
Minneapolis, USA. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels--about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that's plagued her all summer. Mabel's reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner.
Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it's Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.
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, Pr*son, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

*About Sistah Scifi**
Started in 2019 by Isis Asare, Sistah Scifi is the first Back-owned book store focused on science fiction and fantasy in the US as validated by the American Booksellers Association. Located primarily in cyberspace, Sistah Scifi launched three Sistah Scifi Book Vending Machines at Chapter 510 located at 546 9th St, Oakland, CA 94607 and Northwest African American Museum and Distant Worlds Coffee in Seattle, WA in 2022. More at www.sistahscifi.com.

Host or Publisher Sistah Scifi