The Diverse Families bookshelf was created and funded through numerous grants. Due to lack of additional grants and the loss of key personnel, the project has come to an end. We have tremendously enjoyed creating this database and hope that it can help bring readers and books together.

Browse by Family Relationship:

Adoption

Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.

Switch View to Grid View Slideshow

Picture Us In The Light

Kelly Loy Gilbert

Daniel, a Chinese-American teen, must grapple with his plans for the future, his feelings for his best friend Harry, and his discovery of a family secret that could shatter everything.
Princess Puffybottom...and Darryl

Susin Nielsen-Fernlund

Princess Puffybottom has the perfect life -- her subjects serve her delicious meals, clean up her "delicate matters" and wait on her hand and foot. Life is good ...until Darryl arrives. Princess Puffybottom thinks he's disgusting, horrid and a true animal. Though she tries everything in her power to banish him (including hypnosis, trickery and even sabotage), it looks like this puppy is here to stay. Can Princess P. and Darryl find a way to co-exist?
Quicksilver

R. J. Anderson

To prevent the public from learning about Tori's unusual DNA, technology "geek" Tori and her adoptive parents move to a new town and change their names.
Real Sisters Pretend

Megan Dowd Lambert

As they play, Mia and Tayja confirm that there's one thing they don't have to pretend: They know in their hearts that they're real sisters, even though others don't always recognize this since they're adopted and don't look alike. Safe in the knowledge that adoption has made them "forever family," the sisters end their make-believe journey with a joyful homecoming to a real home with their two moms.
Rebecca's Journey Home

Brynn Olenberg Sugarman

Mr. and Mrs. Stein and their young sons Gabe and Jacob adopt a baby girl from Vietnam.
Red Butterfly

A. L. Sonnichsen

A young orphaned girl in modern-day China discovers the meaning of family in this inspiring story told in verse, in the tradition of Inside Out and Back Again and Sold. Kara never met her birth mother. Abandoned as an infant, she was taken in by an American woman living in China. Now eleven, Kara spends most of her time in their apartment, wondering why she and Mama cannot leave the city of Tianjin and go live with Daddy in Montana. Mama tells Kara to be content with what she has -- but what if Kara secretly wants more? Told in lyrical, moving verse, Red Butterfly is the story of a girl learning to trust her own voice, discovering that love and family are limitless, and finding the wings she needs to reach new heights.
Red Thread Sisters

Caro Antoinette Peacock

This novel, by Carol Antoinette Peacock, offers a "story of friendship, family, and love. Wen has spent the first eleven years of her life at an orphanage in rural China . . . [with] her best friend, Shu Ling. When Wen is adopted by an American couple, she struggles . . . knowing that Shu Ling remains back at the orphanage, alone. Wen knows that her best friend deserves a family and a future, too. But finding a home for Shu Ling isn't easy, and time is running out."
Revenge and the Wild

Michelle Modesto

The two-bit town of Rogue City is a lawless place, full of dark magic and saloon brawls, monsters and six-shooters. But it’s just perfect for seventeen-year-old Westie, the notorious adopted daughter of local inventor Nigel Butler.
Rice and Beans

Wiley Blevins

A young girl adopted from China sees that her hair and skin color are different from that of her parents. She finds, however, that there's much more to making a family than sharing red hair and freckles.
Rosie's Family: An Adoption Story

Lori Rosove

Rosie's family is a story about belonging in a family regardless of differences. Rosie is a beagle who was adopted by schnauzers. She feels different from the rest of the family and sets forth many questions that children who were adopted may have.
Rubyfruit Jungle

Rita Mae Brown

A landmark coming-of-age novel that launched the career of one of this country’s most distinctive voices, Rubyfruit Jungle remains a transformative work more than forty years after its original publication. In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes—and she refuses to apologize for loving them back. This literary milestone continues to resonate with its message about being true to yourself and, against the odds, living happily ever after.
Runaways, Vol. 2: Best Friends Forever

Rainbow Rowell

The Runaways are a family again! But a family needs a guardian, and the only Runaway who's got her life together is in middle school. And, even for a kid like Molly who likes her classes, that can be fraught with peril. Meanwhile, there's a new arrival as the gang welcomes Karolina's girlfriend - Julie Power of Power Pack! Having an experienced adventurer around will be useful when one of the universe's most fearsome villains invades the hostel! But do some of the Runaways have mixed feelings about Julie's arrival? As Molly contemplates a supernatural deal that must have a monkey's paw-esque downside, one of the team suff ers a fate worse than death. Really! And will the Runaways' greatest foe be...well-meaning outsiders who want to help them?!
See No Color

Shannon Gibney

Alex has always identified herself as a baseball player, the daughter of a winning coach, but when she realizes that is not enough she begins to come to terms with her adoption and her race.
Singing Tree and Laughing Water

Sylvia Hardwick

Relates the adventures of two Native American sisters after they go to live with a foster mother.
Sisters

Judith Caseley

Kika has just been adopted -- and she's worried. There's so much that's new to her: a different language, new friends to make, and something she's never had before -- a family. Melissa has a new sister -- and she's excited. There's so much to share with Kika: trips to the playground, afternoons at the library, and birthday parties. Through each new experience, Kika and Melissa discover that sisterhood can be fun, challenging, and sometimes unpredictable, but always rewarding. Best of all, a sister is a friend for life.
Slant

Laura E. Williams

Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called "slant" and "gook," and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish--and a long-kept secret about her mother's death is revealed--Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.
Sliding into Home

Nina Vincent

Thirteen-year-old Flip Simpson's ideal life just began to crumble. His adoptive parents are splitting up. He's moving from the only home he's ever known. He has to leave before his baseball team finishes the playoffs. And his little sister is his only companion. Flip folds under the weight of so much loss until he meets Ricki, an indigenous classmate who loves baseball and gives Flip a sense of pride in his Mayan roots, and Zorba, an eccentric houseboat dweller who is a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Willy Wonka. Zorba possesses an uncanny ability to sense Flip's fears and doubts and inspires the courage Flip needs to overcome both. Just as life begins to look up, Flip is faced with the challenge of a racist bully. Steve picks at the wounds Flip has tried so hard to mend and brings to the surface questions Flip didn't know he had about race, culture and belonging. Will Flip rise to the challenge and face Steve, or retreat into himself once again?
Somebody's Daughter

Zara Phillips

A hard-hitting and witty memoir about an adopted woman's lifelong quest to find her birth parents - and her identity. It is the fascinating and revealing account of how a beautiful woman's life has been dominated by her adoption and how it has affected her and those around her.
Speranza's Sweater

Marcy Pusey

Speranza wears her sweater everywhere, hanging onto the last memories of her birth home, until it's threadbare. Like her unraveled sweater, Speranza must weave together a new story, brining threads from her past and strands from her present, into a future of love, family and the true meaning of home.
Star of the Week: A Story of Love, Adoption, and Brownies with Sprinkles

Darlene Friedman

As her turn to be "Star of the Week" in her kindergarten class approaches, Cassidy-Li puts together a poster with pictures of her family, friends, and pets, and wonders about her birthparents in China.
Stork M.I.A.

Sandro Isaack

Dad Dad Mom Mom is a picture book series that features the episodes in the lives of Dad and Dad, and Mom and Mom. Its aim is to create a picture book universe for children of Same Gender Couples. STORK M.I.A. is the first volume of this self-published children's book series. It follows the story of Dad and Dad, who were tired of waiting for the Stork, and decided to find her and ask for a baby. They search for the Stork around the world, with the help of Mom and Mom, turning this story into an adventure, rather than a didactic book for children of same gender couples.
Sweet Moon Baby

Karen Henry Clark

The smiling moon watches over a baby girl in China whose parents love her but cannot take care of her, and guides a childless couple that lives far away to the daughter for whom they yearn.
Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child: Making Sense of the Past

Betsy Keefer and Jayne Schooler

Provides parents with the knowledge and tools they need to communicate with their adopted or foster child about the circumstances of their past.
Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born

Jamie Lee Curtis

A young girl asks her parents to tell her again the cherished family story of her birth and adoption.
Tell Me a Real Adoption Story

Betty Jean Lifton

A parent tells an adopted child about coming to the family.