This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by Grades 6-8.
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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How it Feels to Live with a Physical Disability
Jill Krementz
Reveals, through photographs and interviews, the indomitable spirit and strength of children living with such physical disabilities as blindness, cerebral palsy, paralysis, and missing limbs.
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How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom
S.J. Goslee
When his older sister encourages him to ask someone to the prom, things do not go as planned and Nolan ends up fake dating a guy who used to bully him.
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How Tia Lola Learned to Teach
Julia Alvarez
Juanita and Miguel's great aunt, Tia Lola, comes from the Dominican Republic to help take care of them after their parents divorce, and soon she is so involved in their small Vermont community that when her visa expires, the whole town turns out to support her.
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How to Keep Rolling After a Fall
Karole Cozzo
Mean girl Nikki Baylor, accused of a cyberbullying incident that nearly resulted in a classmate's suicide, is expelled from school, abandoned by her friends, and distrusted by her parents but she gets a second chance after meeting Pax, a spirited wheelchair rugby player.
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How to Save a Life
Sara Zarr
Told from their own viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Jill, in grief over the loss of her father, and Mandy, nearly nineteen, are thrown together when Jill's mother agrees to adopt Mandy's unborn child but nothing turns out as they had anticipated.
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How to Survive a Summer
Nick White
A debut novel centering around a gay conversion camp in Mississippi and a man's reckoning with the trauma he faced there as a teen.
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Hurricane Child
Kheryn Callender
Born on Water Island in the Virgin Islands during a hurricane, which is considered bad luck, twelve-year-old Caroline falls in love with another girl--and together they set out in a hurricane to find Caroline's missing mother.
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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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Hurt Go Happy
Ginny Rorby
When thirteen-year-old Joey Willis, deaf since the age of six, meets Dr. Charles Mansell and his chimpanzee Sukari, who use sign language, her world blooms with possibilities but that of the chimp begins to narrow.
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I and I: Bob Marley
Tony Medina
A biography in verse about the Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley, offering an overview of key events and themes in his life, including his biracial heritage, Rastafarian beliefs, and love of music. End notes on poems provide further biographical information.
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I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Will Walton
For most of his young life Avery has dealt with his alcoholic mother with the help of his grandfather Pal--he immerses himself in poetry and popular music, and now that high school is over for the summer, he makes out with his best friend Luca (who understands about alcoholic mothers), but the death of his grandfather creates a hole in his life that he can not seem to crawl out of.
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If I Ever Get Out of Here
Eric L. Gansworth
Seventh-grader Lewis "Shoe" Blake from the Tuscarora Reservation has a new friend, George Haddonfield from the local Air Force base, but in 1975 upstate New York there is a lot of tension and hatred between Native Americans and Whites--and Lewis is not sure that he can rely on friendship.
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If I Tell
Janet Gurtler
Raised by her grandparents, seventeen-year-old Jasmine, the result of a biracial one night stand, has never met her father but has a good relationship with her mother until she sees her mother's boyfriend kissing Jaz's best friend.
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I Funny: A Middle School Story
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Resolving to become the world's greatest stand-up comedian despite less-than-funny challenges in his life, wheelchair-bound middle school student Jamie Grimm endures bullying from his mean-spirited cousin and hopes he will be fairly judged when he enters a local comedy contest.
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I Funny: School of Laughs (I Funny #5)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
When a new principal threatens to close the school library, Jamie Grimm tries to save the day by teaching a comedy class for his fellow students.
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I Funny TV: A Middle School Story (I Funny #4)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Jamie Grimm has finally accomplished his dream of proving himself the Planet's Funniest Kid Comic, and the sky's the limit from there. Enter a couple of TV executives with a huge plan for Jamie: a new show about Jamie and his oddball friends!
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Inkmistress
Audrey Coulthurst
Asra is a demigod with a dangerous gift: the ability to dictate the future by writing with her blood. To keep her power secret, she leads a quiet life as a healer on a remote mountain, content to help the people in her care and spend time with Ina, the mortal girl she loves. When bandits threaten Ina's village, Asra uses her blood magic to try and help but her spell goes horribly wrong. Ina takes a savage dragon asher manifest, and swears revenge on the king, unaware Asra is at fault. To stop Ina, Asra becomes a player in lethal games among assassins, gods, and even the king himself.
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In Other Lands
Sarah Rees Brennan
Sometimes it's not the kid you expect who falls through to magicland, sometimes it's...Elliott. He's grumpy, nerdy, and appalled by both the dearth of technology and the levels of fitness involved in swinging swords around. He's a little enchanted by the elves and mermaids. Despite his aversion to war, work, and most people (human or otherwise) he finds that two unlikely ideas, friendship and world peace, may actually be possible.
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In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World
Joey Graceffa
A confessional, uplifting memoir from the beloved YouTube personality. It's not where you begin that matters. It's where you end up. Twenty-three year old Joey Graceffa has captured the hearts of millions of teens and young adults through his playful, sweet, and inspirational YouTube presence (not to mention his sparkling eyes and perfect hair). Yet, Joey wasn't always comfortable in his skin, and in this candid memoir, he thoughtfully looks back on his journey from pain to pride, self-doubt to self-acceptance. To his fans, Joey is that best friend who always captures the brighter side of life but also isn't afraid to get real. In the pages of his first book, he opens up about his years of struggling with family hardships and troubles at school, with cruel bullying and the sting of rejection. He tells of first loves and losses, embarrassing moments and surprising discoveries, loneliness, laughter, and life-changing forks in the road, showing us the incalculable value of finally finding and following your true passion in this world. Funny, warm-hearted, and inspiring, Joey Graceffa's story is a welcome reminder that it's not where you begin that matters, but where you end up.
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Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
Dusti Bowling
Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again. Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all...even without arms.
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Internment
Samira Ahmed
Rebellions are built on hope. Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens. With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today.
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It All Comes Down to This
Karen English
Perfect for fans of Glory Be, this charming middle grade coming-of-age novel set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1965 is narrated by Sophie, a precocious, sheltered twelve-year-old. But when her family becomes the first African Americans to move into their upper middle-class neighborhood and riots erupt in nearby Watts, she learns that life-and her own place in it-is a lot more complicated than it had seemed.
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Itch
Michelle D. Kwasney
In 1968, after the death of her beloved Gramps, Delores "Itch" Colchester and her grandmother move from Florida to an Ohio trailer park, where she meets new people and, when she learns that a friend is being abused by her mother, tries her best to emulate her plain-spoken grandfather.
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It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living
Dan Savage and Terry Miller
Growing up isn't easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, and this is especially true for LGBT kids and teens. It Gets Better is a collection of original essays and expanded testimonials written to teens from celebrities, political leaders, and everyday people, because while many LGBT teens can't see a positive future for themselves, we can.
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I Totally Funniest: A Middle School Story (I Funny #3)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Jamie Grimm is back and better than ever. After scoring big on national TV in the semifinals contest, everyone back home is jumping on the Jamie Grimm bandwagon, and all the attention might be going to his head. Not only are his friendships starting to suffer, but the pressure of coming up with his best material ever for the ultimate standup act to snag the final win in Hollywood is pushing Jamie to the brink. Suddenly, life isn't looking very funny anymore. Can Jamie take the grand prize without pushing away his fans, friends and family?