The Diverse Families bookshelf was created and funded through numerous grants. Due to lack of additional grants and the loss of key personnel, the project has come to an end. We have tremendously enjoyed creating this database and hope that it can help bring readers and books together.
Browse by Family Relationship:
Foster Care
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Girls Like Us
Gail Giles
Graduating from their school's special education program, Quincy and Biddy are placed together in their first independent apartment and discover unexpected things they have in common in the face of past challenges and a harrowing trauma.
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Goodnight, Boy
Nikki Sheehan
A tale of two very different worlds, both shattered by the loss of loved ones. Tragic, comic and full of hope, thanks to a dog called Boy. The kennel has been JC's home ever since JC s new foster father locked them inside. As the hours and days pass, JC tells Boy about how he came to his country: his family, the orphanage and the Haitian earthquake that swept everything away. How, after, his adoptive mother his foster mother Melanie brought a new light into his life and brought him to her home country. He started to feel normal again. Until JC did something bad, so bad that he and Boy were banished to the kennel. Just before their punishment, just before the kennel. Now their Foster Father is getting sicker, Melody still isn't home, and JC and Boy realize that they have to try and escape.
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Gossamer
Lois Lowry
While learning to bestow dreams, a young dream giver tries to save an eight-year-old boy from the effects of both his abusive past and the nightmares inflicted on him by the frightening Sinisteeds.
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Home After Dark
David Small
A savage portrayal of male adolescence gone awry, like no other work of recent fiction or film. Wildly kaleidoscopic and furiously cinematic, Home After Dark is a literary tour-de-force that renders the brutality of adolescence in the so-called nostalgic 1950s, evoking classics such as The Lord of the Flies. Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to California in search of a dream. Forced to fend for himself, Russell struggles to survive in Marshfield, a dilapidated town haunted by a sadistic animal killer and a ring of malicious boys who bully Russell for being "queer." Rescued from his booze-swilling father by Wen and Jian Mah, a Chinese immigrant couple who long for a child, Russell betrays them by running away with their restaurant's proceeds.
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Home At Last
Vera B. Williams
After Lester is adopted from his foster home by Daddy Albert and Daddy Rich, he can't fall asleep in his new bed. What will it take to make Lester feel home at last?
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Hurricane Heat
Steve Barwin
Years after Travis's parents die in a car crash and he and his younger sister, Amanda, are separated, Travis sets out to search for her at the risk of losing an opportunity for a future baseball career.
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Ilario: The Lion's Eye
Mary Gentle
Abandoned and alone, the fosterling Ilario grows up as the King's Freak, surrounded by all the pomp, intrigue, and danger of the Iberian court. Fleeing a failed treacherous attack, Ilario crosses the sea to Carthage, where the mysterious Penitence shrouds the sky in darkness. There, a strange and awful destiny awaits the would-be painter, one that spans continents and kingdoms.
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I Miss My Foster Parents
Stefon Herbert
A little boy who is adopted tells why he misses his foster parents.
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I'm More Than a Foster Child
Ava Suggs and Marlo Suggs
Follows the stress and struggles of a young girl who overcomes the the challenges of being bounced around to numerous foster homes.
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Is Your Family Like Mine?
Lois Abramchik
In this book, a 5 year old girl named Armetha has two mothers who raise her. She begins to become curious about other families and asks all of her friends “Who is in your family?” She quickly becomes aware that all of her friends come from different families; some are nuclear while others have a step parent, single parent, or foster parent. Armetha and her friends decide that while their families are different, their common bond is love, and that is what makes a family. This is great to introduce to a group of children from different backgrounds to help them relate to one another.
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It's Yr Life
Tempany Deckert and Tristan Bancks
Sim's from Byron Bay. Milla lives in Hollywood. Sim's in a foster home and dumpter-dives for food. Milla lives in a mansion with her celebrity parents. When the two are forced to email each other for an assignment, it's doomed to fail. So why haven't they stopped? Secrets.
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Jakeman
Deborah Ellis
Jake and his older sister, Shoshonna, along with a busload of kids, visit their mother in prison regularly. But this time the journey turns into a series of misadventures, and the kids find themselves on their own, hatching a plan to find the Governor and plead with him to pardon their moms.
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Just for Now: Kids and the People of the Court
Kimberly Morris and Kathleen Burke
When Gilbert and his big sister Rachel go into foster care they meet a lot of adults who are there to help them--a caseworker, foster parents, foster brothers and sisters, a lawyer, a therapist, a judge, their own court appointed special advocate (CASA), and a dog named Spud. Explains the roles of various people in the court system.
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Kids are Important: A Book for Young Children in Foster Care
Julie Nelson
Explains to children some of the reasons why a child ends up in foster care.
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Kids Need to be Safe: A Book for Children in Foster Care
Julie Nelson
Explains that all children are important and need safe places to live and play, and describes what foster parents do and how foster children may feel when placed in a foster home.
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Kinda Like Brothers
Coe Booth
When his mother takes in a twelve-year-old foster boy, Jarrett is forced to share his room and his friends with the new boy.
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Leonardo's Hand
Warwick Downing
Finally in a foster home with a caring family, Nard, a thirteen-year-old orphan with only one hand, invents a human-powered flying machine with the assistance of the 500-year-old hand of Leonardo da Vinci.
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Levi's Family (All Kinds of Families)
Elliot Riley
Easy reader introduces a foster child and his foster parents, highlighting their family dynamics and adoption.
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Little Cub
Olivier Dunrea
A young bear cub, who is alone in the world, and Old Bear, who is grumpy and tired of living alone, meet and discover what they have been missing.
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Locomotion
Jacqueline Woodson
In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.
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Losers Bracket
Chris Crutcher
When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie's swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew and finally get him into a safe home.
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Maniac Magee
Jerry Spinelli
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
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Maybe Days: A Book for Children in Foster Care
Jennifer Wilgocki and Marcia Kahn Wright
Introduces the people and procedures involved in foster care, and the feelings, reactions, and concerns of new foster children. Includes an afterword for caregivers. Will I live with my parents again? Will I stay with my foster parents forever? For children in foster care, the answer to many questions is often "maybe." Maybe Days addresses the questions, feelings, and concerns these children most often face.
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Meeting my CASA: A Story with Activities
Adam D. Robe and Kim A. Robe
Designed to help foster children adjust better to changes in life, promote communication, and gain insight into a child's feelings and interpretation of the world around him.
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Missing Sisters
Gregory Maguire
Twelve-year-old Alice, an orphan who has never been adopted because of her physical handicap and difficult personality, is shocked to discover she has an identical twin sister living nearby.