This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by Grades 3-5.
DIVerse Families is a comprehensive bibliography that demonstrates the growing diversity of families in the United States. This type of bibliography provides teachers, librarians, counselors, adoption agencies, children/young adults, and especially parents and grandparents needing to empower their children with materials that reflect their families.
Browse by Grade Level:
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Sibling Split: The Impossible Wish
M. G. Higgins
Months after their parents divorce, Annabelle who lives with their father, and Arnie, who lives with their mother, still nurture the hope that somehow their parents will get back together, and that once more they will be a family.
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Sibling Split: Trouble in the City
M. G. Higgins
Now that summer is over and school is beginning separated siblings Annabelle and Arnie are struggling to cope with the reality of life apart--but when Annabelle comes to her mother and brother's apartment in the city a lot of repressed emotion suddenly overflows.
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Signal
Cynthia C. DeFelice
After moving with his emotionally distant father to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, twelve-year-old Owen faces a lonely summer until he meets an abused girl who may be a space alien.
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Sign Up Here: A Story about Friendship
Kathryn Cole
When nobody will let her join their club, Dee-Dee decides to start a club of her own that welcomes everybody.
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Singing Hands
Delia Ray
In the late 1940s, twelve-year-old Gussie, a minister's daughter, learns the definition of integrity while helping with a celebration at the Alabama School for the Deaf--her punishment for misdeeds against her deaf parents and their boarders.
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Sister Split
Sally Warner
When her parents separate, eleven-year-old Ivy must cope not only with their impending divorce, but also with the unexpected impact it has on her relationship with her older sister.
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Skateboard Sonar
Eric Stevens
Although blind, Matty is an excellent skateboarder, but when the former champion mocks him during the skating competition, Matty shows that seeing is not everything.
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Sky
Pamela Paige Porter
Eleven-year-old Georgia lives with her grandparents, Paw Paw and Gramma, on the edge of the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. Spring comes, and it rains and rains until one afternoon the creek behind their house suddenly becomes a wall of water, washing away everything the family owns: their house, their barn, and even Daisy, the only stuffed animal Georgia has ever had. Through sheer determination, Georgia and her grandparents gradually rebuild their lives, but it's not until Georgia finds Sky, a foal that somehow survived the flood, that the family begins to heal and find meaning again despite their losses. Based on the true story of Georgia Salois and written in the haunting voice of a young child, Sky vividly describes the historic flood of 1964 and its effect on Georgia and her people. Their courage in overcoming disaster, poverty, and discrimination provides young readers with a compelling portrayal of endurance.
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Slant
Laura E. Williams
Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called "slant" and "gook," and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish--and a long-kept secret about her mother's death is revealed--Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.
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Small Things
Mel Tregonning
In this wordless graphic picture book, a young boy feels alone with his worries. He isn't fitting in well at school. His grades are slipping. He's even lashing out at those who love him. This short but hard-hitting wordless graphic picture book gets to the heart of childhood anxiety and opens the way for dialogue about acceptance, vulnerability, and the universal experience of worry.
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Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry
Bebe Moore Campbell
A little girl learns coping skills with the help of her grandmother, neighbors and school friends, when her mother's mental illness disrupts her daily routine.
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Sometimes Noise is Big: Life with Autism
Angela Coelho
Sometimes noise is too big for my ears. Sometimes the light is too loud for my eyes. I have autism and this means that sometimes the world around me is just too much! This book will help you to see the world through my eyes and to understand why I react to things the way I do. Flipping the perspective for neurotypicals, this book explains in simple terms some of the sensory issues experienced by children with autism. It shows situations which can be overwhelming and the ways that somebody with autism might react when there is too much going on. This picture book raises awareness of autism and helps young children of all abilities to better understand these issues.
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Sosu's Call
Meshack Asare
When a great storm threatens, Sosu, an African boy who is unable to walk, joins his dog Fusa in helping save their village.
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So Totally Emily Ebers
Lisa Yee
In a series of letters to her absent father, twelve-year-old Emily Ebers deals with moving cross-country, her parents' divorce, a new friendship, and her first serious crush.
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Special People, Special Ways
Arlene H. Maguire
A poem about the ways in which people with many differences in physical and mental ability share the same human needs for love and understanding.
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Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth
Frank Cottrell Boyce
Prez knows that the best way to keep track of things is to make a list. That's important when you have a grandfather who is constantly forgetting. And it's even more important when your grandfather can't care for you anymore and you have to go live with a foster family out in the country. Prez is still learning to fit in at his new home when he answers the door to meet Sputnik—a kid who is more than a little strange. First, he can hear what Prez is thinking. Second, he looks like a dog to everyone except Prez. Third, he can manipulate the laws of space and time. Sputnik, it turns out is an alien, and he's got a mission that requires Prez's help: the Earth has been marked for destruction, and the only way they can stop it is to come up with ten reasons why the planet should be saved. Thus begins one of the most fun and eventful summers of Prez's life, as he and Sputnik set out on a journey to compile the most important list Prez has ever made—and discover just what makes our world so remarkable.
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Star-Crossed
Barbara Dee
When Mattie is cast as Romeo in an eighth-grade play, she is confused to find herself increasingly attracted to Gemma, a new classmate who is playing Juliet.
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Stay
Katherine Lawrence
Millie is eleven going on twelve, and facing her toughest problems yet as she struggles with changes to her family. Her father moves out of the house and faces a cancer diagnosis, and her mother moves on with a new boyfriend. To cope, Millie distracts herself by speaking to her twin brother, Billy (who died before he was born), and dreams of the day she can convince her family to get a puppy.
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Stella by Starlight
Sharon M. Draper
When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.
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Stephen Hawking: Extraordinary Theoretical Physicist
Karen Latchana Kenney
Chronicles the life and career of the theoretical physicist, from his battle with ALS to his work on black holes.
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Stick Boy
Joan T. Zeier
When a seven-inch growth spurt in the sixth grade makes skinny, self-conscious Eric a school misfit and the victim of the class bully, he is led to befriend Cynthia, a proud and spirited black girl who is disabled.
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Sticky Beak
Morris Gleitzman
When she rescues a mistreated cockatoo, mute Rowena finds herself in more trouble than usual, but her actions finally reveal her true concern, that her new mother's impending baby is a replacement for her because she isn't perfect.
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Stranded
Ben Mikaelsen
Twelve-year-old Koby, who has lost a foot in an accident, sees a chance to prove her self-reliance to her parents when she tries to rescue two stranded pilot whales near her home in the Florida Keys.
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Stranded in Boringsville
Catherine Bateson
Following her parents' separation, twelve-year-old Rain moves with her mother to the country, where she befriends the unpopular boy who lives next door and also seeks a way to cope with her feelings toward her father and his new girlfriend.
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Strawberry Moon
Karen English
While driving to Auntie Dot's house, Junie tells her children about spending fifth grade there during her parent's separation many years earlier, when finding a best friend seemed almost as important as seeing her mother again.