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.
This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by genre.
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 Genre:
-
All My Stripes: A Story for Children with Autism
Shaina Rudolph and Danielle Royer
Zane rushes home to tell his mother about problems he faced during his school day, and she reminds him that while others may only see his "autism stripe," he has stripes for honesty, caring, and much more.
-
A New Barker in the House
Tomie DePaola
Twins Moffie and Morgie are excited when they hear that their family is adopting a three-year-old Hispanic boy.
-
Boats for Papa
Jessixa Bagley
Buckley and his Mama live in a cozy cabin by the ocean. He loves to carve boats out of the driftwood he finds on the beach nearby. He makes: big boats long boats short boats and tall boats, each one more beautiful than the last, and sends them out to sea. If they don't come back, he knows they've found their way to his papa, whom he misses very much.
-
Bunnybear
Andrea J. Loney
Although Bunnybear was born a bear, he feels more like a bunny. He loves to bounce through the forest, wiggle his nose, and munch on strawberries. The other bears don't understand him, and neither do the bunnies. Will Bunnybear ever find a friend who likes him just the way he is?
-
Curious George Joins the Team
Cynthia Platt
While on a playdate with his new friend, Tina, who uses a wheelchair, George sees some kids playing basketball and jumps right into the action, but Tina is too shy to join in, even though he knows she is a great player.
-
Dragon's Extraordinary Egg
Debi Gliori
A dragon finds an abandoned egg and lovingly raises the hatchling as her own, although Little One is very different from the baby dragons, and when disaster strikes it is the small, feathered hatchling that saves the day.
-
Jim's Lion
Russel Hoban
Asleep in his hospital bed, Jim dreams of a great lion with white teeth and amber eyes. This lion is Jim’s finder. According to Nurse Bami, everyone has a finder, a creature who comes looking for us when we are lost. But when the time comes for Jim’s operation, will his lion be able to find him and bring him safely home?
-
Lou Caribou: Weekdays with Mom, Weekends with Dad
Marie-Sabine Roger and David Wilson
A young reindeer lives with his mother and visits his father on weekends. The story of Lou Caribou will help small children come to terms with their own parents' separation. This book shows that parents who live apart still lovingly care for their child, and that their separation has not diminished their love for him.
-
Steggie's Stutter
Jack Hughes
Steggie has a stutter and sometimes it takes her a bit longer than others to get her words out. Her friends are in a hurry to play a game and rush off without listening to her warning into the Deep, Dark and Scary Forest. Before long, the friends get into trouble and it's up to Steggie to rescue them. But will they listen to her advice?
-
The Baby Kangaroo Treasure Hunt
Carmen Martinez Jover
Two kangaroos: Jack and Sam, a gay couple, have their own baby by means of an egg donor and surrogacy. This story enables children to easily understand how they were conceived and it helps gay parents explain in an easy and loving how how their family was formed.
-
The Best of Both Nests
Jane Clarke
One day, Mrs. Stork tells Stanley that Dad is going to fly off and build his own nest. At school, Stanley worries about Dad missing Fathers' Flyday Friday. But his friend Stella tells him, "Two nests are better than one."
-
The Cottage in the Woods
Katherine Coville
Presents the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" as told by young Teddy's governess, who came to work at the Vaughn family "cottage" shortly before a golden-haired girl, ragged and dirty, entered the home and soon became a beloved foster child, until evil characters tried to take her away.
-
The Little Lame Prince
Rosemary Wells
Cruel Osvaldo rules El Cordoba - keeping the people poor and unhappy. The true heir to the throne, Francisco, has been banished to a tower. Orphaned and crippled when he was very young, Francisco grows up unaware that he should be king. But one day he discovers his true idenity.
-
Two Nests
Laurence Anholt
Two birds build a nest together and hatch a baby bird, but when they fail to get along the father bird moves to a new nest, and though baby bird is unhappy at first, when he learns to fly from nest to nest he sees that the situation isn't that bad.
-
Water Bugs and Dragonflies: Explaining Death to Young Children
Doris Stickney
After a water bug suddenly leaves her pond and is transformed into a dragonfly, her friends' questions about such departures are like those children ask when someone dies.
-
What if the Zebras Lost Their Stripes?
John Reitano
If the zebras lost their stripes and became different from one another, some white and some black, would they turn and fight each other and stop living life as loving friends?
-
Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories
Lore Segal
Young Mole and his grandmother live together and get along well enough most of the time, but in each of these four stories there is an exception to the rule
-
You Were Always in My Heart: A Shaoey & Dot Adoption Story
Mary Beth Chapman and Steven Curtis Chapman
An abandoned Chinese baby who has been befriended by a ladybug finds her way to an orphanage where she is eventually adopted by an American family.
