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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The Red Blanket
Eliza Thomas
Tells the story of a single woman who goes to China to adopt a baby. Based on the author's life.
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The Remember Balloons
Jessie Oliveros
James has a bunch of balloons, each of which holds a special memory, but as his grandfather ages and loses his own balloons, James discovers that he is gaining new ones.
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There's Only One of Me!
Pat Hutchins
Daughter Sister Half-sister Stepdaughter Stepsister Cousin Niece Granddaughter Great-Granddaughter There are so many things to be when the relatives are coming to your birthday party But sometimes the best thing of all is to be a birthday girl. Oh, happy birthday
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There's Only One You
Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook
Celebrate your individuality with this picture book that honors all the wonderful things that make you . . . you.--.
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The Road to Paris
Nikki Grimes
Inconsolable at being separated from her older brother, eight-year-old Paris is apprehensive about her new foster family but just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life-changing decision.
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The Rope Walk: A Novel
Carrie Brown
At her tenth birthday party, Alice, a motherless young girl protected by her family, encounters two people that change her life--Theo, a biracial boy from New York City, and Kenneth, an artist suffering from the ravages of AIDS.
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The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly
Stephanie Oakes
A handless teen escapes from a cult, only to find herself in juvenile detention and suspected of knowing who murdered her cult leader.
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The Secret's Out (Amy Hodgepodge, #5)
Kim Wayans Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Can a secret break up the friendship of five fourth-grade girls and prevent them from finishing an art project?
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These Dreams of You
Steve Erickson
The election of the country's first black president prompts failed novelist Zan Nordhoc and his wife to solve the mystery surrounding their adopted black daughter's life, an epic journey that helps a struggling family salvage its bonds.
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The Seeds of Friendship
Michael Foreman
A powerful fable about friendship transforming the world from the award-winning and internationally best-selling illustrator Michael Foreman.
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These Hands
Margaret H. Mason
An African American man tells his grandson about a time when, despite all the wonderful things his hands could do, they could not touch bread at the Wonder Bread factory. Based on stories of bakery union workers; includes historical note.
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The Serpent's Shadow
Rick Riordan
Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sadie Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all. Unfortunately, the magicians of the House of Life are on the brink of civil war, the gods are divided, and the young initiates of Brooklyn House stand almost alone against the forces of chaos. The Kanes' only hope is an ancient spell that might turn the serpent's own shadow into a weapon, but the magic has been lost for a millennia. To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the murderous ghost of a powerful magician who might be able to lead them to the serpent's shadow...or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld.
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The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere, #2)
Heidi Heilig
Nix has spent her whole life journeying to places both real and imagined aboard her time-traveling father's ship. And now it's finally time for her to take the helm. Her father has given up his obsession to save her mother -- and possibly erase Nix's existence -- and Nix's future lies bright before her. Until she learns that she is destined to lose the one she loves. But her relationship with Kash -- best friend, thief, charmer extraordinaire -- is only just beginning. How can she bear to lose him? How can she bear to become as adrift and alone as her father? Desperate to change her fate, Nix takes her crew to a mythical utopia to meet another Navigator who promises to teach her how to manipulate time. But everything in this utopia is constantly changing, and nothing is what it seems -- not even her relationship with Kash. Nix must grapple with whether anyone can escape her destiny, her history, her choices.
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The Skin I'm In
Sharon Flake
Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.
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The Skin I'm In: A First Look at Racism
Pat Thomas
A simple explanation of racism, its basic causes, and the ways in which it can lead to unfair practices.
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The Skin You Live In
Michael Tyler
Rhyming text and illustrations celebrate being content with the skin in which one lives, whatever that skin might be.
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The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2)
Rick Riordan
Demigod Percy Jackson, still with no memory, and his new friends from Camp Jupiter, Hazel and Frank, go on a quest to free Death, but their bigger task is to unite the Greek and Roman camps so that the Prophecy of Seven can be fulfilled.
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The Story of Ruby Bridges
Robert Coles
For months six-year-old Ruby Bridges must confront the hostility of white parents when she becomes the first African American girl to integrate Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960.
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The Storyteller's Beads
Jane Kurtz
During the political strife and famine of the 1980's, two Ethiopian girls, one Christian and the other Jewish and blind, struggle to overcome many difficulties, including their prejudices about each other, as they make the dangerous journey out of Ethiopia.
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The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles)
Amy Spalding
A summer of first love, fashion, friendship, and cheeseburgers.
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The Tangerine Tree
Regina Hanson
Ida is heartbroken when Papa has to leave Jamaica to work in America, but she knows that he needs her to care for the tangerine tree in their yard, and he promises to return before it blooms again.
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The Tortilla Quilt
Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli
With color illustrations, quilt pattern and a recipe for tortillas, you too can bring a little of Granma Lupita home with you.
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The Treasure Box
Margaret Wild
When the enemy bombs the library, everything burns, and only one book survives. As war rages around them, Peter and his father, alongside so many refugees, flee their home, taking with them a treasure box that holds something rarer than rubies and more precious than gold. They journey through mud and rain and long cold nights, and soon survival becomes more important than any possession. But as the years go by, Peter never forgets the treasure box, and one day he returns to find it. This moving story from celebrated author Margaret Wild is illustrated with Freya Blackwood’s subtly affecting artwork, which incorporates pages of children’s books in translation. The result is a haunting and beautiful tale of the power of stories and the resilience of the human spirit.
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The White Elephant
Sid Fleischman
Run-Run the elephant boy is given a sacred white elephant as a punishment. The elephant is not allowed to work but Run-Run must figure out a way to feed it, himself and his old elephant Walking Mountain. Can Run-Run find a way to make the white elephant disappear?
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The White Swan Express
Elaine M. Aoki and Jean Davies Okimoto
Across North America, people in four different homes prepare for a special trip to China, while four baby girls in China await their new adoptive parents.