This collection contains materials on the topic of biracial diversity from the DIVerse Families bibliography. Biracial stories contain children, teenagers, and adults who are a product of two racial groups. These stories often portray biracial children and teenagers where their parents are of two different races. A topic that is regularly covered is racial identity.
Racial diversity displayed in families continues to expand as people from different racial backgrounds overcome the hurdles and stigma of mixed race relationships, marriage, and children. Often these stories reveal themes involving racism and prejudice.
Browse by Racial Diversity:
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Through My Window
Tony Bradman
When Jo is sick and has to stay home from school, her mother promises her a special surprise, and all day long she waits eagerly to see what it might be.
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Transracial Adoption: Children and Parents Speak
Constance Pohl
Explores the issues related to interracial and international adoptions, using interviews with black, biracial, Asian, and Hispanic young people who were adopted into white or biracial families.
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Trevor's Story: Growing Up Biracial
Bethany Kandel
Ten-year-old Trevor Sage-El describes his life at home and at school, his feelings about being the son of a white mother and a black father, and what he likes and does not like about being biracial.
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Twenty Yawns
Jane Smiley
Featuring lyrical text and beautiful illustrations, this bedtime tale from Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley and Caldecott Honor recipient Lauren Castillo evokes the splashy fun of the beach and the quietude of a moonlit night, with twenty yawns sprinkled in for children to discover and count. As her mom reads a bedtime story, Lucy drifts off. But later, she awakens in a dark, still room, and everything looks mysterious. How will she ever get back to sleep?
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Two Mrs. Gibsons
Toyomi Igus
The biracial daughter of an African American father and a Japanese mother fondly recalls growing up with her mother and her father's mother, two very different but equally loving women.
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Unplugged: Ella Gets Her Family Back
Laura Pedersen
Upset that her family is so focused on the screens on their various electronic devices that they no longer talk, laugh, and play games together, Ella takes all of their chargers and small devices.
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Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1)
Sarah Rees Brennan
Kami Glass is in love with someone she's never met--a boy she's talked to in her head since she was born. This has made her an outsider in the sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale, but she has learned ways to turn that to her advantage. Her life seems to be in order, until disturbing events begin to occur. There has been screaming in the woods and the manor overlooking the town has lit up for the first time in 10 years. The Lynburn family, who ruled the town a generation ago and who all left without warning, have returned. Now Kami can see that the town she has known and loved all her life is hiding a multitude of secrets--and a murderer. The key to it all just might be the boy in her head. The boy she thought was imaginary is real, and definitely and deliciously dangerous.
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Up From the Sea
Leza Lowitz
A novel in verse about the March 2011 tsunami that sent Japan into chaos, told from the point-of-view of Kai, a biracial teenaged boy. The March 2011 tsunami devastated Kai's coastal Japanese village, and he lost nearly everyone and everything he cares about. When he's offered a trip to New York to meet kids whose lives were changed by 9/11, Kai realizes he also has a chance to look for his estranged American father. Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai discovers that the only way to make something good come out of the disaster back home is to return there and help rebuild his town.
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Vengeance Road
Erin Bowman
When Kate Thompson’s father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the eighteen-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.
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Violet
Tania Duprey Stehlik
Violet's mother is red, and her father is blue--so why isn't she red or blue? Why is she purple? Upset and confused, Violet goes to her mother. Using paints, her mother shows her that when you combine red and blue, you get violet!
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Wait and See
Tony Bradman
It's Saturday, and Jo has some pocket money to spend. So Jo and her mum go shopping, while Dad stays at home to make lunch for them all. But what should she spend her money on? She'll have to wait and see.
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Waiting for Baby
Rachel Fuller
A young child learns what to expect when his new sibling is born and comes into his life. On board pages.
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War of the Eagles
Eric Walters
During World War II near Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Jed comes to better understand and take pride in his British and native Tsimshian ancestry through caring for an injured eagle at a military fort and losing his Japanese Canadian best friend to an internment camp.
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W.E.B. Du Bois (Biographies of Biracial Achievers)
Jim Whiting
Highlights the life and accomplishments of the African American scholar and leader who devoted himself to gaining equality for his people.
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Welcome to Bordertown
Holly Black and Ellen Kushner
Stories and poems set in the urban land of Bordertown, a city on the edge of the faerie and human world, populated by human and elfin runaways.
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What are You?: Voices of Mixed-Race Young People
Pearl Fuyo Gaskins
Many young people of racially mixed backgrounds discuss their feelings about family relationships, prejudice, dating, personal identity, and other issues.
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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?
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What's In There? All About Before You Were Born
Robie H. Harris
Follows the adventures of young Gus and Nellie, who watch their mother's pregnancy and anticipate the arrival of a new sibling while learning engaging facts about how unborn babies develop.
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When Aidan Became a Brother
Kyle Lukoff
When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl's room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of his life that didn't fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life. Then Mom and Dad announce that they're going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning--from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does "making things right" actually mean? And what happens if he messes up? With a little help, Aidan comes to understand that mistakes can be fixed with honesty and communication, and that he already knows the most important thing about being a big brother: how to love with his whole self.
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When Grown-Ups Fall in Love
Barbara Lynn Edmonds
This book is a sweet poem which shows families with mom and dad, two moms, and two dads. The large, colorful illustrations are great for group storytime or for one child sitting on your lap. Suitable for reading to children from newborns to 7-year-olds. The book also includes coloring pages as well as space for children to write their own family stories. Gay-friendly preschool literature is a long overdue resource for parents and teachers, both gay and straight. The author wants children with gay parents to feel included in the world of children's literature, and also wants to help straight parents provide their children with books which promote an appreciation of diversity.
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Where's Lenny
Ken Wilson-Max
Lenny plays hide-and seek with daddy--but Daddy can't find him anywhere. Where's Lenny?
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Whoa Baby, Whoa!
Grace Nichols
A baby finally finds something to do that does not make everyone in the family tell him "No."
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Who Do I Look Like?
Mary Schulte
A young girl finds that she looks a little like everyone in her family, but mostly like herself.
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Who's In My Family?: All About Our Families
Robie H. Harris
Nellie and her little brother Gus discuss all kinds of families during a day at the zoo and dinner at home with their relatives afterwards.
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Zack
William Bell
The son of a Jewish father and black mother, high school senior Zack has never been allowed to meet his mother's family, but after doing a research project on a former slave, he travels from his home in Canada to Natchez, Mississippi to find his grandfather.