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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My Pal, Victor / Mi amigo, Víctor
Diane Gonzales Bertrand
Two boys enjoy the summer doing all of the things that boys do despite one boy's disability. Full story in English and again in Spanish.
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My Two Grandads
Floella Benjamin
Aston's granddad Harry plays the trumpet in a brass band, while Grandad Roy plays the steel drum in a steel band. But only one band can play at Aston's summer fair at school...Which band should Aston choose? Or can he find a way to bring everyone together?
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My Two Grannies
Floella Benjamin
When her two grannies want to eat different meals and tell their own stories, how can Alvina make everyone happy?
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Naming Liberty
Jane Yolen
In parallel stories, a Ukrainian Jewish family prepares to immigrate to the United States in the late 1800s, and Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designs, raises funds for, and builds the Statue of Liberty in honor of the United States' centennial.
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New Shoes
Susan Lynn Meyer
Set in the South during the time of segregation, this lushly illustrated picture book brings the civil rights era to life for contemporary readers as two young girls find an inventive way to foil Jim Crow laws.When her brother's hand-me-down shoes don't fit, it is time for Ella Mae to get new ones. She is ecstatic, but when she and her mother arrive at Mr. Johnson's shoe store, her happiness quickly turns to dejection. Ella Mae is unable to try on the shoes because of her skin color. Determined to fight back, Ella Mae and her friend Charlotte work tirelessly to collect and restore old shoes, wiping, washing, and polishing them to perfection. The girls then have their very own shoe sale, giving the other African American members of their community a place to buy shoes where they can be treated fairly and "try on all the shoes they want."
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Nico and Tucker
Rachel Gold
The decision can't be put off any longer. A medical crisis turns Nico's body into a battleground, crushing Nico under conflicting family pressures. Having lived genderqueer for years, Nico is used to getting strong reactions (and uninvited opinions!) from everyone, but it is Tucker's reaction that hurts the most. Jess Tucker didn't mean to hurt Nico, but she panicked. And after the worst year of her life, she's hanging on by a thread. Forget recovery time and therapy, she needs to put the past behind her and be normal again. But when her relationship with Nico becomes more than she can handle, she cuts and runs.
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Night Music
Jenn Marie Thorne
Ruby and Oscar are caught up in a romance despite very different backgrounds and her having given up on music, while he is the protégé of her father, a renowned composer.
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Night on Fire
Ronald Kidd
When thirteen-year-old Billie Sims learns that the Freedom Riders, a civil rights group protesting segregation on buses in the summer of 1961, will be traveling through Anniston, Alabama, she thinks change could be coming to her stubborn town. But what starts as angry grumbles soon turns to brutality, and Billie is forced to reconsider her own views.
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Nina Bonita: A Story
Ana Maria Machado
Enchanted by Nina Bonita's black skin, a white rabbit determines to find a way to have children as beautiful and black as she is.
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Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story
Nora Raleigh Baskin
The morning of September 11, 2001, was warm, clear and perfect. Until 8:46 a.m when a plane struck the World Trade Center. But that has not happened yet.`
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Nora & Kettle (Paper Starts #1)
Lauren Nicolle Taylor
Set in 1953, Nora & Kettle explores the collision of two teenagers facing extraordinary adversity. Kettle, an orphaned Japanese American, is struggling to make a life in the aftermath of an event in history not often referred to--the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the removal of children from orphanages for having "one drop of Japanese blood in them." Nora, the daughter of a civil rights lawyer who is building a compensation case for the interned Japanese Americans, is barely surviving her violent home and dreams of a life outside of the brownstone walls. Their meeting is inevitable, devastating and ultimately healing.
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Nora's Chicks
Patricia Maclachlan
Nora and her family have just arrived from Russia and are making a new home on the American frontier. The prairie is very different from the forested hills Nora is used to. Most of all, it’s lonely. Papa has the cows he sings to as he milks them. Baby brother Milo has a dog to follow him wherever he goes. But Nora has no one and nothing to call her own until Papa brings home a dozen chicks and two geese. Nora names each one, and they follow her everywhere — even to church! But what will happen when one of her beloved chicks goes missing?
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Not Even Bones
Rebecca Schaeffer
Nita's mother hunts monsters and, after Nita dissects and packages them, sells them online, but when Nita follows her conscience to help a live monster escape, she is sold on the black market in his place.
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No Tildes on Tuesday
Cherrye S. Vasquez
Isabella never wanted to learn to speak Spanish. But when her parents announce that they are moving the family to a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood, Isabella becomes desperately afraid that she won't be able to fit in and grudgingly agrees to start Spanish lessons with her abuela. But the lessons aren't as easy as she thought they would be. Abuela is a strict teacher and the words are a lot more difficult to memorize than Isabella thought they would be, so at the goading of her best friend she decides to put a stop to them. Through a runaway adventure, a visit to her father in the hospital, and an introduction to a new kind of friend, Isabella comes to realize that Spanish may not be as bad as she thought, and that being able to communicate with people who share her heritage could be invaluable. Follow Isabella and author Cherrye Vasquez on a challenging journey of culture, family, and communication that just might change your mind about having No Tildes on Tuesday.
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Not My Idea
Anastasia Higginbotham
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness is a a picture book that invites white children and parents to become curious about racism, accept that it's real, and cultivate justice.
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Not Otherwise Specified
Hannah Moskowitz
Auditioning for a New York City performing arts high school could help Etta escape from her Nebraska all-girl school, where she is not gay enough for her former friends, not sick enough for her eating disorders group, and not thin enough for ballet, but it may also mean real friendships.
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Noughts & Crosses (Noughts & Crosses #1)
Malorie Blackman
Sephy is a Cross - a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a nought - a 'colourless' member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood. But that's as far as it can go.
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Now That I'm Here
Aaron Meshon
A little boy describes what his parents' lives were like before he was born ... and how much more fun-filled they are now that he's here
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Obama: A Promise of Change
David Mendell and Sarah L. Thomson
A journalist who has covered the senator and presidential candidate since his campaign for the Senate offers a portrait that features his childhood and youth in Hawaii and his embrace of seemingly ruthless campaign tactics.
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Obama: Only in America
Carole Weatherford
From birth to election as the first African-American president of the United States, this biography tells the story of Barack Obama through lyrical prose and primary-source quotes from his speeches throughout.
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Odd One out
Nic Stone
High school juniors and best friends Courtney and Jupe, and new sophomore Rae, explore their sexuality and their budding attractions for one another.
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Off-Color
Janet McDonald
Fifteen-year-old Cameron living with her single mother in Brooklyn finds her search for identity further challenged when she discovers that she is the product of a biracial relationship.
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Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families
Gigi Kaeser and Peggy Gillespie
Based on an award-winning photo exhibit, this collection of interviews and photographs documents the feelings and experiences of "thirty-nine families who have bridged the racial divide through interracial marriage or adoption."
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Ojiichan's Gift
Chieri Uegaki
A young girl finds a way to give the gift of a traditional Japanese garden back to her beloved grandfather and accept a difficult change.
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Olu's Dream
Shane W. Evans
Olu begs his father to be allowed to stay up and finish a project, but his father insists that he go to sleep, promising that he can have fun overnight, too.