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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The Red Pencil
Andrea Davis Pinkney
After her tribal village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, must flee to safety at a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the friendship and encouragement of a wise elder.
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The Road to Paris
Nikki Grimes
Inconsolable at being separated from her older brother, eight-year-old Paris is apprehensive about her new foster family but just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life-changing decision.
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The Same Stuff as Stars
Katherine Paterson
When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.
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The Saturday Boy
David Fleming
If there's one thing I've learned from comic books, it's that everybody has a weakness--something that can totally ruin their day without fail. For the wolfman it's a silver bullet. For Superman it's Kryptonite. For me it was a letter. With one letter, my dad was sent back to Afghanistan to fly Apache helicopters for the U.S. army. Now all I have are his letters. Ninety-one of them to be exact. I keep them in his old plastic lunchbox--the one with the cool black car on it that says Knight Rider
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The Science of Breakable Things
Tae Keller
Middle schooler Natalie's year-long assignment to answer a question using the scientific process leads to truths about her mother's depression and her own cultural identity.
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The Secret's Out (Amy Hodgepodge, #5)
Kim Wayans Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Can a secret break up the friendship of five fourth-grade girls and prevent them from finishing an art project?
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The Ship of the Dead
Rick Riordan
Magnus and his friends set sail for the farthest borders of Jotunheim and Niflheim in pursuit of Asgard's greatest threat, Loki's demonic ship full of zombies.
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The Someday Birds
Sally J. Pla
Charlie, twelve, who has autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, must endure a cross-country trip with his siblings and a strange babysitter to visit their father, who will undergo brain surgery.
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The Sorta Sisters
Adrian Fogelin
In Florida, Anna Casey lives with what she hopes is the last in a long line of foster mothers, and Mica Delano lives with her father on their small boat, and when the two of them begin corresponding, they discover they have a lot in common.
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The Sound of All Things
Myron Uhlberg
A hearing boy and his deaf parents from Brooklyn enjoy the rides, food, and sights of 1930's Coney Island where the father longs to know about how everything sounds and his son tries to interpret the noisy surroundings through sign language and a wealth of new words learned from a trip to the library.
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The Storm
Marc Harshman
Though confined to a wheelchair, Johnathan faces the terror of a tornado all by himself and saves the lives of the horses on the family farm. Full-color illustrations.
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The Storyteller's Beads
Jane Kurtz
During the political strife and famine of the 1980's, two Ethiopian girls, one Christian and the other Jewish and blind, struggle to overcome many difficulties, including their prejudices about each other, as they make the dangerous journey out of Ethiopia.
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The Stranger Within Sarah Stein
Thane Rosenbaum
When her parents separate, twelve-year-old Sarah Stein feels split into her mother's daughter and daddy's girl, but a disgraced firefighter who lives in a hidden room in the Brooklyn Bridge, and her grandmother's story of her own childhood, help Sarah find her true self.
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The Summer of Riley
Eve Bunting
Eleven-year-old William never needed a friend more than now. After his parents' separation, his father's new engagement, and his grandfather's dying without any warning -- adopting big, beautiful Riley is the first thing in a long time that has made him feel better. That is, until Riley innocently chases a horse. Local law states that any animal that chases livestock must be put to sleep. Suddenly William stands to lose another thing close to him. Together with his "totally unsurpassed" friend Grace, William begins a campaign to reverse the county commissioners' decision. But with a community divided on the issue, and the bully Ellis Porter trying to stop them at every turn, will they be able to save Riley's life? Celebrated author Eve Bunting shows William's determined struggle to fight for what he believes in. The Summer of Riley is an inspiring novel about learning to accept life's changes, the healing power of friendship, and the unending desire to protect those we love.
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The Summer of the Gypsy Moths
Sara Pennypacker
A foster child named Angel and twelve-year-old Stella, who are living with Stella's great-aunt Louise at the Linger Longer Cottage Colony on Cape Cod, secretly assume responsibility for the vacation rentals when Louise unexpectedly dies and the girls are afraid of being returned to the foster care system.
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The Tortilla Quilt
Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli
With color illustrations, quilt pattern and a recipe for tortillas, you too can bring a little of Granma Lupita home with you.
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The Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish
Claudia Mills
While dealing with her parents' separation and her best friend's distance, Amanda is able to work out some of her anxiety through her fifth-grade project--writing a diary from the point of view of a ten-year-old girl whose brothers fight on opposite sides in the Civil War.
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The Trouble with Babies
Martha Freeman
Nine-year-old Holly tries to adjust to a new home with a neighbor who has just invented a de-yukkification device.
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The Trouble with Cats
Martha Freeman
After a difficult first week of third grade, Holly begins to adjust to her new school and living in her new stepfather's tiny apartment with his four cats.
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The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle
Leslie Connor
Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason’s learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason’s best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can’t understand why Lieutenant Baird won’t believe the story Mason has told about that day. Both Mason and his new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky, are relentlessly bullied by the other boys in their neighborhood, so they create an underground haven for themselves. When Calvin goes missing, Mason finds himself in trouble again. He’s desperate to figure out what happened to Calvin and, eventually, Benny. But will anyone believe him?
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The War That Saved My Life
Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
A young disabled girl and her brother are evacuated from London to the English countryside during World War II, where they find life to be much sweeter away from their abusive mother.
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The White Elephant
Sid Fleischman
Run-Run the elephant boy is given a sacred white elephant as a punishment. The elephant is not allowed to work but Run-Run must figure out a way to feed it, himself and his old elephant Walking Mountain. Can Run-Run find a way to make the white elephant disappear?
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The Year I Didn't Eat
Samuel Pollen
Fourteen-year-old Max records his efforts to control his anorexia in a therapist-prescribed journal that also chronicles his parents' difficult relationship and his feelings for a new girl at school, Evie.
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The Year the Swallows Came Early
Kathryn Fitzmaurice
After her father is sent to jail, eleven-year-old Groovy Robinson must decide if she can forgive the failings of someone she loves.
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Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry
Susan Vaught
A family mystery leads Dani Beans to investigate the secrets of Ole Miss and the dark history of race relations in Oxford, Mississippi.