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 Race & Culture:
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Made in China: A Story of Adoption
Vanita Oelschlager
Made in China tells the story of a girl adopted into an American family and the problems she encounters with her older sister. With help from her father, the adopted sister learns the value of her Chinese beginnings. Later the girls accept their differences and embrace the joy that comes from a loving family.
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Maisie's Scrapbook
Samuel Narh
As the seasons turn, Maisie rides her bull in and out of Dada's tall tales. Her Mama wears linen and plays the viola. Her Dada wears kente cloth and plays the marimba.They come from different places, but they hug her in the same way. And most of all, they love her just the same. A joyful celebration of a mixed-race family and the love that binds us all together.
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Mama & Papa Have a Store
Amelia Lau Carling
A little girl describes what a day is like in her Chinese parents' dry-goods store in Guatemala City.
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Mama's Child: A Novel
Joan Steinau Lester
A novel about deeply entrenched conflicts between a white mother and her biracial daughter.
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Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation
Edwidge Danticat
When Saya's mother is sent to jail as an illegal immigrant, she sends her daughter a cassette tape with a song and a bedtime story, which inspires Saya to write a story of her own -- one that just might bring her mother home.
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Maniac Magee
Jerry Spinelli
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
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Map of Ireland
Stephanie Grant
In 1974, when Ann Ahern begins her junior year of high school, South Boston is in crisis -- Catholic mothers are blockading buses to keep Black children from the public schools, and teenagers are raising havoc in the streets. Ann, an outsider in her own Irish-American community, is infatuated with her beautiful French teacher, Mademoiselle Eugénie, who hails from Paris but is of African descent. Spurred by her adoration for Eugénie, Ann embarks on a journey that leads her beyond South Boston, through the fringes of the Black Power movement, toward love, and ultimately to the truth about herself.
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March Book One
John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
This graphic novel is Congressman John Lewis' first-hand account of his lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. BookOne spans Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a climax on the steps of City Hall. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington D.C., and from receiving beatings from state troopers, to receiving the Medal of Freedom awarded to him by Barack Obama, the first African-American president.
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Mariah Carey (Biographies of Biracial Achievers)
Kerrily Sapet
Provides an overview of the life and career of Mariah Carey, discussing her family, achievements in the entertainment industry, challenges, and more.
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Mariama: Different But Just the Same
Jerónimo Cornelles
Everything's new for Mariama after a long journey by car, train, boat, and plane from Africa. She's going to discover a world where the streets, her school, and the food are all different. But what about the people? A beautiful tale about identity, the process of integration, and solidarity. Are you ready to meet Mariama and play with her?
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Marianthe's Story: Painted Words and Spoken Memories
Aliki .
Two separate stories, the first telling of Mari's starting school in a new land, and the second describing village life in her country before she and her family left in search of a better life.
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Mariposa Gown
Rigoberto Gonzalez
Caliente Valley High School senior Maui, a gay Latino, is torn between his growing affection for a wealthy newcomer and his loyalty to the LGBT alliance he helped found, whose members consider making a statement by attending prom in drag.
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Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash
Monica Brown
A unique, spunky, multiracial, bilingual girl plans a one-of-a-kind birthday party and hopes her abuelita (grandma) will be able to come from Peru to join the festivities. Includes an author's note and glossaries.
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Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match
Monica Brown
A creative, unique, bilingual Peruvian Scottish-American-soccer-playing artist celebrates her uniqueness.
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Marriage
Noel Merino
Presents extracts and analysis of four court decisions dealing with marriage, covering such issues as the polygamy, the right to marital privacy, interracial marriage, and same-sex marriage.
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Martin De Porres: The Rose in the Desert
Gary D. Schmidt
The story of Saint Martín de Porres--an endearing tale of perseverance, faith, and triumph over racial and economic prejudice.
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Martin's Big Words
Doreen Rappaport
A brief biographical sketch of Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest figures in the American civil rights movement.
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Marwan's Journey
Patricia de Arias
One night they came... The darkness grew colder, deeper, darker, and swallowed up everything... Marwan is a young boy on a journey he never intended to take, bound for a place he doesn’t know. On his journey, he relies on courage and memories of his faraway homeland to buoy him. With him are hundreds and thousands of other human beings, crossing the deserts and the seas, fleeing war and hunger in search of safety. He must take one step after another—bringing whatever he can carry, holding on to dreams. This is the journey of one boy who longs for a home, and we follow his path, walking hand in hand with him as he looks forward with uncertainty and hopes for a peaceful future. This beautiful, heartfelt story gives a human face to the plight of refugees all over the world. Marwan’s journey is everyone’s journey.
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Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
Art Spiegelman
An autobiographical and biographical cartoon in which the author explores his strained relationship with his father, an Auschwitz survivor, while also relating the story of his parent's experiences as Jews in wartime Poland, as told to him by his dad during a series of conversations they had years later in New York and Vermont.
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Max the Champion
Sean Stockdale and Alexandra Strick
Max spends his day dreaming about competing in world class sporting events, and when he and his classmates--some of whom are disabled--prevail in a soccer match, he imagines they have won the World Cup.
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Maxwell's Mountain
Shari Becker
After preparing to be an outdoorsman, Maxwell sets out to climb the mountain in the park.
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Me And My Fear
Francesca Sanna
When a young girl has to move countries and start at a new school, her fear tells her to be alone and afraid. How can she hope to make friends if she doesn't understand anyone? Surely no one else feels the same way... From the award-winning author and illustrator of The Journey, this insightful and delicately told story shows that we can all find friendship and comfort when we share our fears.
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Me, Frida and the Secret of the Peacock Ring
Angela Cervantes
Paloma Marquez is traveling to Mexico City, birthplace of her deceased father, for the very first time. She's hoping that spending time in Mexico will help her unlock memories of the too-brief time they spent together. While in Mexico, Paloma meets Lizzie and Gael, who present her with an irresistible challenge: The siblings want her to help them find a valuable ring that once belonged to beloved Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Finding the ring means a big reward -- and the thanks of all Mexico. What better way to honor her father than returning a priceless piece of jewelry that once belonged to his favorite artist! But the brother and sister have a secret. Do they really want to return the ring, or are they after something else entirely?
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Mei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles: A Loving Story of Adoption, Chinese Culture and a Special Birthday Treat
Shan-Shan Chen
On her sixth birthday, Mei Mei puts on a special new dress and helps her adoptive mother make a traditional birthday dish from Mei Mei's home country, China, to share with her loving family. Includes recipe for Lucky Birthday Noodles.
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Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968
Alice Faye Duncan
This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson through prose and poetry. In 1968 she witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final stand for justice before his assassination--when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.