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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Cilla Lee-Jenkins Future Author Extraordinaire
Susan Tan
A half-Chinese, half-Caucasian girl's "memoir" about a new sibling, being biracial, and her path to literary greatness.
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Cinnamon Baby
Nicola Winstanley
Sebastian falls in love with Miriam after smelling her cinnamon bread. They marry and have a beautiful child who won't stop crying. What will make her stop?
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Cleo Edison Oliver, Playground Millionaire
Sundee T. Frazier
Fifth-grader Cleo Edison Oliver is full of money-making ideas, and her fifth-grade Passion Project is no different--but things get more complicated when she has to keep her business running, be a good listener when her best friend needs her, and deal with the bully teasing her about being adopted at the same time.
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Colores que se aman
Paco Abril
When Luca looks at himself in the mirror, he sees a color that reflects the product of his parents' love, but when he is confronted with racial discrimination, he seeks refuge with his loving grandmother.
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Come Rain or Come Shine: A White Parent's Guide to Adopting and Parenting Black Children
Rachel Garlinghouse
Are you prepared to adopt and parent transracially? Transracial adoption can be a daunting and exhilarating journey. At times you feel incredibly isolated and lost. However, with this conversational and practical guide in hand, you will be able to adopt with confidence and parent with education and enthusiasm.
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Cookies and Cake & the Families we Make
Jennifer L. Egan
A book about exposure and acceptance of the diverse families that are part of our society: single parents, multiracial parents, two moms, two dads, one of each or even an unrelated guardian. Those families who may at first seem different are quite similar, because what really matters is the love and care they give to their children. The author uses the metaphor of the different cakes and cookies we can bake to help young readers respect, accept and welcome diversity.
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Coolies
Yin .
A young boy hears the story of his great-great-great-grandfather and his brother who came to the United States to make a better life for themselves helping to build the transcontinental railroad.
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Cooper's Lesson
Sun Yung Shin
When Cooper, a biracial Korean-American boy, feels uncomfortable trying to speak Korean in Mr. Lee's grocery, his bad behavior eventually leads to a change in his attitude.
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Coping as a Biracial / Biethnic Teen
Renea D. Nash
This book discusses questions and issues of interracial marriage, biracial children, and the importance of racial and ethnic identity.
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Court of Fives
Kate Elliott
When a scheming lord tears Jess's family apart, she must rely on her unlikely friendship with Kal, a high-ranking Patron boy, and her skill at Fives, an intricate, multi-level athletic competition that offers a chance for glory, to protect her Commoner mother and mixed-race sisters and save her father's reputation.
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Cupcake Cousins, Book 2 Summer Showers
Kate Hannigan
Cousins Willow and Delia return to the kitchen as their family welcomes a new baby in the second book in the illustrated Cupcake Cousins series.
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Cupcake Cousins, Book 3 Winter Wonders
Kate Hannigan
Cousins Willow and Delia must save the day when a blizzard threatens to ruin Cat and Mr. Henry's wedding in the third book in the illustrated Cupcake Cousins series.
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Dad David, Baba Chris and Me
Ed Merchant
This brightly illustrated book for children aged 5-10 years old tells Ben’s story about his ordinary life. Ben was adopted by his gay parents – Dad David and Baba Chris – when he was four years old, and they live happily together in an ordinary house, on an ordinary street and do ordinary things.
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Daddy and Pop
Tina Rella
Daddy and Pop is the heartwarming story of Jessie, a little girl with two fathers. Jessie doesn't realize that her family isn't 'typical' until a girl in her class asks about her mom. Jessie's Daddy and Pop tell her about the amazing journey they took to have her, by using an egg donor and a surrogate, in this fun-filled musical book!
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Dad, Jackie, and Me
Myron Uhlberg
In Brooklyn, New York, in 1947, a boy learns about discrimination and tolerance as he and his deaf father share their enthusiasm over baseball and the Dodgers' first baseman, Jackie Robinson.
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Dangerous
Shannon Hale
When aspiring astronaut Maisie Danger Brown, who was born without a right hand, and the other space camp students get the opportunity to do something amazing in space, Maisie must prove how dangerous she can be and how far she is willing to go to protect everything she has ever loved.
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Dara Palmer's Major Drama
Emma Shevah
Dara Palmer dreams of being an actress, but when she does not get a part in the school play, she wonders if it is because of her different looks as an adopted girl from Cambodia, so Dara becomes determined not to let prejudice stop her from being in the spotlight.
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Darius the Great is Not Okay
Adib Khorram
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian -- half, his mom's side -- and his first ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they're spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city's skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush the original Farsi version of his name -- and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Adib Khorram's brilliant debut is for anyone who's ever felt not good enough then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.
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David Blaine: Illusionist and Endurance Artist
Chuck Bednar
A look at the life and career of the famous magician.
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Dear Child
John Farrell
Simple text and illustrations of diverse families show how children affect their loved ones for the better.
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Dear Martin
Nic Stone
Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.
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Dear Santa, Please Come to the 19th Floor
Yin .
Willy and Carlos, who is in a wheelchair, receive a visit from Santa on Christmas Eve, even though they live on the nineteenth floor of their building.
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Death Coming Up the Hill
Chris Crowe Crowe
Douglas Ashe keeps a weekly record of historical and personal events in 1968, the year he turns seventeen, including the escalating war in Vietnam, assassinations, rampant racism, and rioting; his first girlfriend, his parents' separation, and a longed-for sister.
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Derek Jeter: All-Star Major League Baseball Player
Chuck Bednar
A look at the life and career of the famous baseball player.
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Devils Within
S.F. Henson
Killing isn't supposed to be easy. But it is. It's the after that's hard to deal with. Nate was eight the first time he stabbed someone; he was eleven when he earned his red laces--a prize for spilling blood for "the cause." And he was fourteen when he murdered his father (and the leader of The Fort, a notorious white supremacist compound) in self-defense, landing in a treatment center while the state searched for his next of kin. Now, in the custody of an uncle he never knew existed, who wants nothing to do with him, Nate just wants to disappear. Enrolled in a new school under a false name, so no one from The Fort can find him, he struggles to forge a new life, trying to learn how to navigate a world where people of different races interact without enmity. But he can't stop awful thoughts from popping into his head, or help the way he shivers with a desire to commit violence. He wants to be different--he just doesn't know where to start. Then he meets Brandon, a person The Fort conditioned Nate to despise on sight. But Brandon's also the first person to treat him like a human instead of a monster. Brandon could never understand Nate's dark past, so Nate keeps quiet. And it works for a while. But all too soon, Nate's worlds crash together, and he must decide between his own survival and standing for what's right, even if it isn't easy. Even if society will never be able to forgive him for his sins.