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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Ellabug

Gregory Turner-Rahman

Ellabug is a simple story about non-traditional families that follows Ella, a small but strong-willed ladybug, as she begins to question her identity.
Emily in Love

Susan Goldman Rubin

A developmentally-disabled fourteen-year-old faces the challenges of her classes at a "regular" high school, a new job, and a budding romance.
Emmy & Oliver

Robin Benway

Since her best friend Oliver was kidnapped ten years ago, Emmy's parents have smothered her with their relentless worry, and when Oliver suddenly reappears in his hometown, he and Emmy struggle to face the messy, confusing consequences of the crime.
Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy

Andrea Warren

Chronicles the experiences of an orphaned Amerasian boy from his birth and early childhood in Saigon through his departure from Vietnam in the 1975 Operation Babylift and his subsequent life as the adopted son of an American family in Ohio.
Esperanza Rising

Pam Munoz Ryan

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.
Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea

Sungju Lee and Susan McClelland

The memoir of a boy named Sungju who grew up in North Korea and, at the age of twelve, was forced to live on the streets and fend for himself after his parents disappeared. Finally, after years of being homeless and living with a gang, Sungju is reunited with his maternal grandparents and, eventually, his father.
Everything on a Waffle

Polly Horvath

Eleven-year-old Primrose living in a small fishing village in British Columbia recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.
Everything You Need To Know About Living With A Single Parent

Richard E. Mancini

Discusses why some families have only one parent and examines some of the problems that occur in single-parent families.
Evil?

Timothy Carter

Stuart Bradley, a gay teenager living in a conservative Christian town in Ontario, Canada, dabbles in several forbidden activities, and when word gets out, he and some other teens face grave danger from the fallen angels that are inciting hatred and extremism in the community.
Extra Innings

Robert Newton Peck

After a tragic airplane crash that claims the lives of most of his family, sixteen-year-old Tate goes to live with his wealthy great-grandfather and his adopted black great-aunt Vidalia and he finds unexpected solace in the stories of her childhood spent travelling with a Depression-era Negro baseball team.
Extraordinary Birds

Sandy Stark-McGinnis

Eleven-year-old December waits to sprout wings and fly away, until a new foster mother changes her perspective on home and family.--
Extraordinary People with Disabilities

Deborah Kent and Kathryn A. Quinlan

Profiles seven dozen people throughout history with various physiccal or mental disabilities.
Fade to Us

Julia Day

Brooke's summer is going to be EPIC -- having fun with her friends and a job that lets her buy a car. Then her new stepfather announces his daughter is moving in. Brooke has always longed for a sibling, so she's excited about spending more time with her stepsister. But she worries, too. Natalie has Asperger's--and Brooke's not sure how to be the big sister that Natalie needs. After Natalie joins a musical theater program, Brooke sacrifices her job to volunteer for the backstage crew. She's mostly there for Natalie, but Brooke soon discovers how much she enjoys being part of the show. Especially sweet is the chance to work closely with charming and fascinating Micah--the production's stage manager. When her summer finally comes to an end, will Brooke finally have the family she so desperately wants--and the love she's only dreamed about?
Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love

Aylette Jenness

Photographs and text depict the lives of seventeen families from around the country, some with step relationships, divorce, gay parents, foster siblings, and other diverse components. The material was originally a traveling exhibition, begun at the Children's Museum in Boston.
Far from the Tree

Robin Benway

Grace, adopted at birth, is raised as an only child. At sixteen she's just put her own baby up for adoption, and now is looking for her biological family. She discovers Maya, her loudmouthed younger bio sister who was also adopted; and Joaquin, their stoic older bio brother, who has no interest in bonding over their shared biological mother after seventeen years in the foster care system. Grace struggles between cautious joy at having found them, and the true meaning of family in all its forms.
Far from Xanadu

Julie Anne Peters

In this fresh, poignant novel Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father's suicide and her mother's detachment from her family. Mike (real name Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball and fix plumbing. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike's small Kansas town, she falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything that Mike is not - cool, confident, feminine, sexy and - straight! No matter how close their growing friendship is, Mike is always going to be 'far from Xanadu'.
Far from You

Tess Sharpe

Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice. The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick. The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery. After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina, and about the secret they shared.
Fast Break

Mike Lupica

Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.
Fat Angie

E.E. Charlton-Trujillo Charlton-Trujillo

Fat Angie's sister was captured in Iraq, she's the resident laughingstock at school, and her therapist tells her to count instead of eat. Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything?
Felix Yz

Lisa Bunker

Thirteen-year-old Felix Yz chronicles the final month before an experimental procedure meant to separate him from the fourth-dimensional creature, Zyx, with whom he was accidentally fused as a young child.
Fighting for Dontae

Mike Castan

When Mexican American seventh-grader Javier is assigned to work with a special education class and connects with Dontae, who has both physical and mental disabilities, his reputation among gang members and drug abusers no longer seems very important.
Finding Audrey

Sophie Kinsella

Meet Audrey: an ordinary teenage girl with not so ordinary problems. Aside from her completely crazy and chaotic family, she suffers from an anxiety disorder which makes talking to her brother's hot new best friend a bit of a challenge.
Finding Langston

Lesa Cline-Ransome

Discovering a book of Langston Hughes' poetry in the library helps Langston cope with the loss of his mother, relocating from Alabama to Chicago as part of the Great Migration, and being bullied.
Find Me

Romily Bernard

When teen hacker and foster child Wick Tate finds a dead classmate's diary on her front step, with a note reading "Find me," she sets off on a perverse game of hide-and-seek to catch the killer.
Finlater

Shawn Stewart Ruff

In this Lambda Literary Award-winning debut, the course of growing up in just-this-side-of-segregation 1970s Cincinnati, Ohio, seems predictable if uninspiring for Cliffy Douglas. That is, until the deadbeat father of this gifted 13-year-old black kid from the Finlater Gardens Projects appears out of nowhere. The real fun and trouble begin when Noah, a Jewish boy he meets in junior high school, takes him on a joyride to first lust and love.