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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Forever, or a Long, Long Time
Caela Carter
Flora and her brother, Julian, don’t believe they were born. They’ve lived in so many foster homes, they can’t remember where they came from. And even now that they’ve been adopted, Flora still struggles to believe that they’ve found their forever home. So along with their new mother, Flora and Julian begin a journey to go back and discover their past—for only then can they really begin to build their future.
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Forever Rhen
Sandra Athans
Rhen's parents are getting a divorce, and Rhen worries about the change. Find out what changes and what stays the same.
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For My Family, Love, Allie
Ellen B. Senisi
Allie, whose father is black and mother is white, decides to make special food as a present for her relatives when they come for a big family party.
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Four-Four-Two
Dean Hughes
From the author of Soldier Boys and Search and Destroy comes a thought-provoking, action-packed story based on the little-known history of the Japanese Americans who fought with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II. Yuki Nakahara is an American. But it's the start of World War II, and America doesn't see it that way. Like many other Japanese Americans, Yuki and his family have been forced into an internment camp in the Utah desert. But Yuki isn't willing to sit back and accept this injustice-it's his country too, and he's going to prove it by enlisting in the army to fight for the Allies. When Yuki and his friend Shig ship out, they aren't prepared for the experiences they'll encounter as members of the "Four-Four-Two," a segregated regiment made up entirely of Japanese-American soldiers. Before Yuki returns home-if he returns home-he'll come face to face with persistent prejudices, grueling combat he never imagined, and friendships deeper than he knew possible.
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Freaks and Revelations
Davida Wills Hurwin
"You can come back when you're done being gay." Jason is a 13-year-old who comes out to his religious and conservative mother, only to be cast out of their home. Homeless, he learns how to survive, eventually turning to hustling as a way to live. Doug is a 17-year-old with an abusive father and a chip on his shoulder. Energized and empowered by violence, he gets mixed up with a group of Neo-Nazis. The lives of these two flawed teens spiral towards each other, and one fateful night their paths cross at a fast-food restaurant in Los Angeles, and a horrendous hate crime is committed. Freaks and Revelations is a raw and gripping novel based on the haunting true story of Timothy Zaal and Matthew Boger. Told in alternating perspectives by Jason (Matthew Boger) and Doug (Timothy Zaal), author Davida Wills Hurwin creates a fictional narrative that traces the tragic - but ultimately inspirational - journeys of two very polarized teens.
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Freddie Ramos Makes a Splash
Jacqueline Jules
Freddie Ramos uses his super powers to give himself courage to learn how to swim and to deal with a new neighbor who is a bully.
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Freddie Ramos Rules New York
Jacqueline Jules
On a visit to New York City to see Uncle Jorge, Freddie brings his special sneakers which give him super speed but are becoming too small for his growing feet.
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Freddie Ramos Springs into Action
Jacqueline Jules
When a very important inventor needs rescuing, Freddie Ramos activates his special sneakers and becomes a superhero.
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Freddie Ramos Stomps the Snow
Jacqueline Jules
When a freak spring blizzard buries Starwood Park, Freddie works with Mr. Vaslov to clear the sidewalks using a new invention--Zapato Power snowshoes. But not even the snow can stop a thief from causing trouble in the neighborhood. Can Freddie solve the case, even if it means helping Erika, the Starwood Park bully?
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Freddie Ramos Takes Off
Jacqueline Jules
Freddie finds a mysterious package outside his apartment containing sneakers that allow him to run faster than a train, and inspire him to perform heroic deeds.
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Freddie Ramos Zooms to the Rescue
Jacqueline Jules
A very unusual squirrel is spotted in and around Starwood Elementary School, and when Freddie uses his Zapato Power to chase it, he finds more than one opportunity to be a hero.
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Frederick Douglass: Abolitionist, Author, Editor and Diplomat
Jim Whiting
Traces the life and historical impact of the noted abolitionist, detailing his birth into slavery and harsh upbringing, his subsequent escape, and his emergence as a leader.
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Freedom Summer: the 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
Susan Goldman Rubin
An account of the civil rights crusade in Mississippi 50 years ago that brought on shocking violence and the beginning of a new political order.
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Free to Be...You and Me
Marlo Thomas
This is the book we all know and love by Marlo Thomas and her friends—brought to new life with brand new illustrations to captivate and inspire a new generation of readers on a journey of the heart. Whether you are opening Free to Be . . . You and Me for the first time or the one hundredth time you will be engaged and transformed by this newly beautifully illustrated compilation of inspirational stories, songs, and poems. The sentiments of thirty-five years ago are as relevant today as when this book was published. Celebrating individuality and challenging stereotypes empowers both children and adults with the freedom to be who they want to be and to have compassion and empathy for others who may be different. Working closely with Marlo and co-creator Carole Hart, Peter H. Reynolds, the New York Times Best Selling Children’s Book Author/Illustrator, conjured his whimsical drawings throughout the book bringing a new sense of unity and warmth to the pages. You will find yourself marveling at the illustrations, nodding in agreement with the stories and poems, and singing the words to all the classic songs! It is wonderful that the thoughts, ideas, and emotions the creators envisioned so many years ago can still have a magical effect on children today.
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From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun
Jacqueline Woodson
Almost-fourteen-year-old Melanin Sun's comfortable, quiet life is shattered when his mother reveals she has fallen in love with a woman.
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Front Desk
Kelly Yang
After emigrating from China, ten-year-old Mia Tang's parents take a job managing a rundown motel, despite the nasty owner, Mr. Yao, who exploits them, while she works the front desk and tries to cope with fitting in at her school.
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Full Cicada Moon
Marilyn Hilton
In 1969 twelve-year-old Mimi and her family move to an all-white town in Vermont, where Mimi's mixed-race background and interest in "boyish" topics like astronomy make her feel like an outsider.
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Gaijin: American Prisoner of War
Matt Faulkner
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a thirteen-year-old California boy who is half Japanese is sent to an internment camp. Story based on the history of the author's great-aunt.
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Gator on the Loose
Sue Stauffacher
Chaos ensues when Keisha's father brings an escaped alligator home to Carter's Urban Rescue, but it gets out of the bathroom while Grandma is guarding it.
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Gem
Emma Kallok
Soon after her saxophone-playing neighbor composes a special song, a young girl's baby sister arrives and receives an appropriate name.
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Ghost Boys
Jewell Parker Rhodes
Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation unleashed on his family and community. This gripping story is about how children, families--and one boy--grow to understand American blackness.
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Ginger Brown: Too Many Houses
Sharon Dennis Wyeth, Cornelius Van Wright, and Ying-Hwa Hu
When her parents get a divorce, six-year-old Ginger lives for a while with each set of grandparents and begins to understand her mixed background and her new family situation.
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Girls for Breakfast
David Yoo
Nick Park, about to graduate from high school, looks back on his life in upscale Renfield, Connecticut, and wonders how much being the only Asian American in his school affected his thwarted quest for popularity and a girlfriend.
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Give Me Some Truth
Eric Gansworth
In 1980 life is hard on the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New York, and most of the teenagers feel like they are going nowhere: Carson Mastick dreams of forming a rock band, and Maggi Bokoni longs to create her own conceptual artwork instead of the traditional beadwork that her family sells to tourists--but tensions are rising between the reservation and the surrounding communities, and somehow in the confusion of politics and growing up Carson and Maggi have to make a place for themselves.
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Glory Be
Augusta Scattergood
In the summer of 1964 as she is about to turn twelve, Glory's town of Hanging Moss, Mississippi, is beset by racial tension when town leaders close her beloved public pool rather than desegregating it.