6-8 Books | University of Central Florida

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.

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Big Big Sky

Kristyn Dunnion

It is the future. ScanMans, an alien race, invades the warring, poverty stricken, and diseased remains of the Earth. They exterminate all human adults. They recruit orphans for military training in their subterranean, experimental training facility. Rustle is a young scout in a tight-knit female warrior group of five. They're trained to be aggressive, quick thinking, obedient--though for what exact purpose they couldn't quite tell you. But somehow the group is falling apart.
Bigger Than a Bread Box

Laurel Snyder

Devastated when her parents separate, twelve-year-old Rebecca must move with her mother from Baltimore to Gran's house in Atlanta, where Rebecca discovers an old bread box with the power to grant any wish--so long as the wished-for thing fits in the bread box.
Billie of Fish House Lane

Meredith Sue Willis

A twelve-year-old girl attempts to understand and accept her affluent, white cousin while living in a multiracial, eccentric family.
Billy Had to Move: A Foster Care Story

Theresa Ann Fraser

Child Protection Services have been involved with Billy and his mother for some time now. He has been happily settled in a kinship placement with his grandmother and enjoys his pet cat, interacting with neighbors and even taking piano lessons. As the story unfolds, Billy's grandmother has unexpectedly passed away and so the story of Billy Had To Move begins. Unfortunately, Billy's mother cannot be located. Mr. Murphy, Billy's social worker, places him in the foster home of Amy, Tim, and their baby "Colly." Billy experiences great loss resulting not only from his grandmother's death, but also the loss of the life he knew. Billy's inner journey therefore has also begun and with the help of Ms. Woods, a Play Therapist, there is hope.
Binge

Tyler Oakley

Pop-culture phenomenon, social rights advocate, and the most prominent LGBTQ+ voice on YouTube, Tyler Oakley brings you Binge, his New York Times bestselling collection of witty, personal, and hilarious essays. For someone who made a career out of over-sharing on the Internet, Tyler has a shocking number of personal mishaps and shenanigans to reveal in his first book: experiencing a legitimate rage blackout in a Cheesecake Factory; negotiating a tense standoff with a White House official; crashing a car in front of his entire high school, in an Arby’s uniform; projectile vomiting while bartering with a grandmother; and so much more. In Binge, Tyler delivers his best untold, hilariously side-splitting moments with the trademark flair that made him a star.
Bingo Love

Tee Franklin

When Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray met at church bingo in 1963, it was love at first sight. Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid-'60s, Hazel and Mari reunite again at a church bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage.
Bitter Rose: Color Me Crushed

Melody Carlson

A Mexican-American high school senior deals with the separation and divorce of her parents and their effects on her relationship with them and with God.
Black and White

Eric Walters

Thomas meets Denyse after he watches her amazing skills at basketball. As the two become friends, they endure name-calling, cruel glances, and hurtful comments because of the difference of their skin.
Black, White and Tan

Nicole C. Mullen

Nicole C. Mullen’s book reminds children “Together we are beautiful!” God loves all the kids in his family―no matter what color they are.
Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self

Rebecca Walker

In a memoir about the power of race to share one's personal identity, the daughter of Jewish father and African-American mother recalls her confusing but ultimately rewarding life lived between two conflicting ethnic identities. When Mel Leventhal married Alice Walker during the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, his mother declared him dead and did not reconcile until after the birth of her first grandchild.
Blended

Sharon M. Draper

Piano-prodigy Isabella, eleven, whose black father and white mother struggle to share custody, never feels whole, especially as racial tensions affect her school, her parents both become engaged, and she and her stepbrother are stopped by police.
Bloodline

Joe Jimenez

Seventeen-year-old Abraham is in love, but his girlfriend and the grandmother who raised him are worried about his fighting, and things only get worse when his uncle introduces him to boxing.
Booker T. Washington (Biographies of Biracial Achievers)

Jim Whiting

Biography of the African American slave who was freed, got an education, and opened Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and devoted his life to black education.
Box Girl

Sarah Withrow

Gwen, confident her mother who ran away five years earlier is going to return soon and take her to live in France, decides not to make any friends, but her plans fall through when Clara, a new eighth-grader, insists on being friends, and together the two sort out their place with friends, school, and family.
Branded by the Pink Triangle

Ken Setterington

Before the rise of the Nazi party, Germany, especially Berlin, was one of the most tolerant places for homosexuals in the world. But that all changed when the Nazis came to power. The pink triangle sewn onto prison uniforms became the symbol of the persecution of homosexuals, a persecution that would continue for many years after the war. A mix of historical research, first-person accounts and individual stories bring this time to life for readers.
Breadcrumbs

Anne Ursu

Hazel and Jack are best friends until an accident with a magical mirror and a run-in with a villainous queen find Hazel on her own, entering an enchanted wood in the hopes of saving Jack's life.
Breaking Out

Barthe DeClements

As thirteen-year-old Jerry enters junior high school, he continues to adjust to the fact that his father is in prison for theft. Sequel to "Five Finger Discount" and "Monkey See Monkey Do."
Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment

Sundee Tucker Frazier

As biracial Brendan Buckley enters middle school, he deals with issues with his African American father, a new girl at school, and his changing friendship with his best friend.
Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It

Sundee Tucker Frazier

Brendan Buckley, a biracial ten-year-old, applies his scientific problem-solving ability and newfound interest in rocks and minerals to connect with his white grandfather, the president of Puyallup Rock Club, and to learn why he and Brendan's mother are estranged.
Brown Girl Dreaming

Jacqueline Woodson

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.
Brown Like Me

Noelle Lamperti

A little girl named Noelle tells how she likes to go looking for things that are brown like her.
Bruises

Anke de Vries and Stacey Knecht

While living in Holland, Michael meets Judith, who is frightened, bullied, and beaten by her mother and blames herself for the abuse she is enduring.
Camo Girl

Kekla Magoon

Ella, a biracial girl with a patchy and uneven skin tone, and her friend Z, a boy who is very different, have been on the bottom of the social order at Caldera Junior High School in Las Vegas, but when the only other African-American student enters their sixth grade class, Ella longs to be friends with him and join the popular group, but does not want to leave Z all alone.
Camp Confidential: Jenna's Dilemma

Melissa J. Morgan

Eleven-year-old Jenna, contending with the separation of her parents and the unwanted presence of her twin brother and older sister at Camp Lakeview, is determined to make a name for herself by pulling the ultimate prank.
Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship

Irene Latham and Charles Waters

How can Irene and Charles work together on their fifth grade poetry project? They don't know each other... and they're not sure they want to. Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is black, use this fictional setup to delve into different experiences of race in a relatable way, exploring such topics as hair, hobbies, and family dinners.