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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It's Not the End of the World
Judy Blume
A young girl tries to restore order to her family life by preventing her parents from going through with their divorce.
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It's Not What You Expect
Norma Klein
At loose ends the summer their parents separate, fourteen-year-old twins open and operate a restaurant with the help of their friends
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It's Our Prom (So Deal with It)
Julie Anne Peters
Told in separate voices, Azure, who is a lesbian, and Luke, who is bisexual, help plan an inclusive senior prom. At the same time, Luke is writing and producing a musical about his life, both are working through the crush they have on their friend Radhika, and all three are dealing with problems at home.
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It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health
Robie H. Harris
Introduces human sexuality, describes the changes brought about by puberty, and discusses sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and pregnancy.
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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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Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots
Margarita Engle
Thousands of Navy sailors are pouring into Los Angeles on their way to the front lines of World War II. They are young, scared, and longing to feel alive before they have to face the horrors of battle. Hot jazz music spiced with cool salsa rhythms calls them to dance with the local Mexican American girls, who jitterbug all night before working all day in the canneries. Proud to do their part for the war effort, these Jazz Owl girls dance with the sailors until the blazing summer night when racial violence leads to murder. Suddenly the restless white sailors are attacking the girls' brothers and boyfriends. The cool, loose zoot suits they wear are supposedly the reason for the violence - but really these boys are viciously beaten and arrested simply because of the color of their skin.
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Jerkbait
Mia Siegert
Fifteen-year-old Tristan is forced to play caretaker after his twin brother, a closeted gay NHL Draft prospect, attempts suicide, and becomes aware his brother is being stalked by an online predator.
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Jesus Land: A Memoir
Julia Scheeres
It's the mid-1980s. Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David are sixteen years old and have just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees and trailer parks, and a racism neither of them is prepared for. While Julia is white, her close relationship with David, who is black, makes them both outcasts. At home, a distant mother, more involved with her church's missionaries than with her own children, and a violent father only compound their problems. When high-school hormones, bullying, and a deep-seated restlessness prove too much to bear, they are packed off to a Christian boot camp in the Dominican Republic. Surrounded by natural beauty, the Escuela Caribe is governed by a disciplinary regime that demands its teens repent for their sins, which few of them are aware they've committed. How they made it through with heart and soul intact is told here with candor and humor.
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Journey
Patricia MacLachlan
Left by their mother with their grandparents, two children feel as if their past has been erased until Grandfather finds a way to restore it to them.
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Jubilee
Patricia Reilly Giff
Judith stopped talking long ago when Mom left her in the care of beloved Aunt Cora. Going back into a regular fifth-grade classroom won't be easy, but she has her Dog and new friend who will help her through.
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Jubilee Journey
Carolyn Meyer
Emily Rose has always felt comfortable growing up in Connecticut with her African American mother and her "French American" father, but when they spend some time with her great-grandmother in Texas, Emily Rose learns about her black heritage and uncovers some new and exciting parts of her own identity.
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Just Girls
Rachel Gold
To quell the controversy over a trans girl living in their dorm, Tucker claims she is transgendered, and is placed on the receiving end of prejudice and bullying over it.
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Kevin Keller
Dan Parent
Follows Riverdale's newest resident Kevin Kendall as he meets Archie and his friends, falls in love with journalism, and is inspired to join the military.
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Kevin Keller: Drive Me Crazy
Dan Parent
Kevin has gone from the new kid in town to one of the most well-known and popular students at Riverdale High School! Struggling to stay on top of his new duties while trying to find time for a social life, Kevin deals with the mishaps and mayhem that have always been a staple of high school life in Riverdale. From his first car to first dates to a starring role in a school play (written by Veronica?!) it's bound to be an eventful year for Kevin. Not to mention a surprise appearance and introduction by none other than George Takei!
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Kids of Appetite
David Arnold
Teens Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco sit in separate police interrogation rooms telling about the misfits who brought them together and their journey sparked by a message in an urn.
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Kimchi & Calamari
Rose Kent
Teenaged Joseph Calderaro, who was adopted from Korea by Italian parents, begins to make important self-discoveries about race and family after his social studies teacher assigns an essay on cultural heritage and tracing the past.
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King of the Screwups
K.L. Going
After getting in trouble yet again, popular high school senior Liam, who never seems to live up to his wealthy father's expectations, is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay "glam-rocker" uncle.
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Kiss
Jacqueline Wilson
Sylvie and Carl have been friends since they were tiny children. They've always played together, eaten meals with each other's families, called each other boyfriend and girlfriend...and deep down, Sylvie has always believed that they'll end up married to each other. They even have a magical fantasy world that belongs to them alone. But as they become teenagers, things begin to change.
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Lady Daisy
Dick King-Smith
Ned's disappointment turns into shock when the doll his grandmother has given him speaks to him, and together the two of them share stories of their very different worlds.
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Lailah's Lunchbox
Reem Faruqi
Now that she is ten, Lailah is delighted that she can fast during the month of Ramadan like her family and her friends in Abu Dhabi, but finding a way to explain to her teacher and classmates in Atlanta is a challenge until she gets some good advice from the librarian, Mrs. Carman.
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Last Seen Leaving
Caleb Roehrig
Flynn's girlfriend is missing, and people are suspecting him of knowing something, so he struggles to uncover her secrets as he must also face the truth about himself.
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Laverne Cox
Erin Staley
Highlights the struggles and achievements of Laverne Cox, an American actress, who became the first openly transgender person to win numerous awards and have a wax work in Madame Tussauds.
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Leading Ladies
Marlee Matlin and Doug Cooney
A deaf fourth-grader finds her true calling when she is cast as Dorothy in a school production of "The Wizard of Oz."
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Learning Seventeen
Brooke Carter
New Hope Academy, or, as seventeen-year-old Jane Learning likes to call it, No Hope, is a Baptist reform school where Jane is currently being held captive. Of course, smart, sarcastic Jane has no interest in reforming, failing to see any benefit to pretending to play well with others. But then Hannah shows up, a gorgeous bad girl with fiery hair and an even stormier disposition. She shows Jane how to live a full and fulfilling life even when the world tells you you're wrong, and how to believe in a future outside the "prison" walls. Jane soon learns, though, that Hannah is quietly battling some demons of her own.
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Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part One
Michael Dante DiMartino
Relishing their newfound feelings for each other, Korra and Asami leave the Spirit World, but find nothing in Republic City but political hijinks and human vs. spirit conflict. A pompous developer plans to turn the new spirit portal into an amusement park, potentially severing an already tumultuous connection with the spirits. What's more, the triads have realigned and are in a brutal all-out brawl at the city's borders--where hundreds of evacuees have relocated! In order to get through it all, Korra and Asami vow to look out for each other--but first, they've got to get better at being a team and a couple!