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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Bonjour, Lonnie
Faith Ringgold
An African-American Jewish boy traces his ancestry with the help of the Love Bird of Paris.
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Booker T. Washington (Biographies of Biracial Achievers)
Jim Whiting
Biography of the African American slave who was freed, got an education, and opened Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and devoted his life to black education.
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Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah
Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life....
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Breadcrumbs
Anne Ursu
Hazel and Jack are best friends until an accident with a magical mirror and a run-in with a villainous queen find Hazel on her own, entering an enchanted wood in the hopes of saving Jack's life.
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Bread Song
Frederick Lipp
Hoping to make Chamnan, a seven-year-old immigrant from Thailand, feel more at home, the owner of a Portland, Maine, bakery invites him and his grandfather to hear her bread sing.
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Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment
Sundee Tucker Frazier
As biracial Brendan Buckley enters middle school, he deals with issues with his African American father, a new girl at school, and his changing friendship with his best friend.
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Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It
Sundee Tucker Frazier
Brendan Buckley, a biracial ten-year-old, applies his scientific problem-solving ability and newfound interest in rocks and minerals to connect with his white grandfather, the president of Puyallup Rock Club, and to learn why he and Brendan's mother are estranged.
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Bright April
Marguerite De Angeli
Bright April is set in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. The story addresses the problem of racial prejudice and how children are able to gain understanding and tolerance through their own natural devices.
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Bright Lights, Dark Nights
Stephen Edmond
Walter Wilcox's first love, Naomi, happens to be African American, so when Walter's policeman father is caught in a racial profiling scandal, the teens' bond and mutual love of the Foo Fighters may not be enough to keep them together through the pressures they face at school, at home, and online.
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Bringing Asha Home
Uma Krishnaswami
Eight-year-old Arun waits impatiently while international adoption paperwork is completed so that he can meet his new baby sister from India.
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Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
Mary Williams and R. Gregory Christie
Eight-year-old Garang is tending cattle far from his family's home in southern Sudan when war comes to his village. Frightened but unharmed, he returns to find everything has been destroyed. Soon Garang meets other boys whose villages have been attacked. Before long they become a moving band of thousands, walking hundreds of miles seeking safety — first in Ethiopia and then in Kenya. The boys face numerous hardships and dangers along the way, but their faith and mutual support help keep the hope of finding a new home alive in their hearts. Based on heartbreaking yet inspirational true events in the lives of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Brothers in Hope is a story of remarkable and enduring courage, and an amazing testament to the unyielding power of the human spirit.
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Brown Girl Dreaming
Jacqueline Woodson
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.
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Brown Like Me
Noelle Lamperti
A little girl named Noelle tells how she likes to go looking for things that are brown like her.
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Calling the Water Drum
LaTisha Redding
A young boy loses both parents as they attempt to flee Haiti for a better life, and afterward is only able to process his grief and communicate with the outside world through playing the drums.
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Call Me By My Name
John Ed Bradley
Growing up in Louisiana in the late 1960s, where segregation and prejudice still thrive, two high school football players, one white, one black, become friends, but some changes are too difficult to accept.
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Camo Girl
Kekla Magoon
Ella, a biracial girl with a patchy and uneven skin tone, and her friend Z, a boy who is very different, have been on the bottom of the social order at Caldera Junior High School in Las Vegas, but when the only other African-American student enters their sixth grade class, Ella longs to be friends with him and join the popular group, but does not want to leave Z all alone.
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Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
Irene Latham and Charles Waters
How can Irene and Charles work together on their fifth grade poetry project? They don't know each other... and they're not sure they want to. Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is black, use this fictional setup to delve into different experiences of race in a relatable way, exploring such topics as hair, hobbies, and family dinners.
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Carrie and Carl Play: A Flip-Flap Book
Lois T. Smith
Carl and his sister Carrie play at home with Mommy and Dad.
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Caterpillar Summer
Gillian McDunn
Since her father's death, Cat has taken care of her brother, Chicken, for their hardworking mother but while spending time with grandparents they never knew, Cat has the chance to be a child again.
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Cathy Williams, Buffalo Soldier
Sharon K. Solomon
Cathy Williams was the first documented woman to enlist in the United States Army. By disguising herself as a man after the Civil War, she joined the Buffalo Soldiers in protecting the expanding Western states. Cathy's efforts as a soldier earned her an adequate salary and a small place in history.
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Celebrating Families
Rosemarie Hausherr
Presents brief descriptions of many different kinds of families, both traditional and non-traditional.
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Checkmate (Noughts & Crosses, #3)
Malorie Blackman
Rose has a Cross mother and a nought father in a society where the pale-skinned noughts are treated as inferiors and those with dual heritage face a life-long battle against deep-rooted prejudices. And as Rose takes her first steps away from Sephy and into this world, she finds herself drawn inexorably into more and more danger.
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Children of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi
Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.
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Chocolate Me!
Taye Diggs
Relates the experiences of a dark-skinned, curly-haired child who wishes he could look more like the lighter-skinned children in his community until his mother helps him realize how wonderful he is inside and out.
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Chulito
Charles Rice-González
Set against a vibrant South Bronx neighborhood and the youth culture of Manhattan, Chulito is a coming-of-age. coming out love story of a sexy Latino man and the colorful characters that populate his block.