Direct Diversity | University of Central Florida

This collection contains materials filtered by Direct Diversity Impact from the DIVerse Families bibliography.

DIVerse Families is a comprehensive bibliography that demonstrates the growing diversity of families in the United States. This type of bibliography provides teachers, librarians, counselors, adoption agencies, children/young adults, and especially parents and grandparents needing to empower their children with materials that reflect their families.

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Adopted: The Ultimate Teen Guide

Suzanne Slade

Provides a resource for adopted teens who struggle with questions of identity, the search for and meeting with birth parents, and adoption by those of a different race or country, and offers advice and anecdotes from adopted teens.
Adoption

Laurie Willis

Collection of eleven essays pertaining to the topic of adoption, covering open adoption, transracial adoptions, challenging same-sex couples the right to adopt, and other related topics.
Adoption and Foster Care

Kathlyn Gay

Describes how these placement systems work and reveals the feelings of young people who find homes through adoption and foster care.
Adoption is for Always

Linda Walvoord and Judith Friedman

Although Celia reacts to having been adopted with anger and insecurity, her parents help her accept her feelings and celebrate their love for her by making her adoption day a family holiday. Includes factual information about the adoption process.
Adoption Stories for Young Children

Randall B. Hicks

Explaining in very simple terms why some parents cannot care for their children, and would choose to place them for adoption, this helpful collection of case studies also shows photographs of real adoptive parents who cannot bear children of their own, and introduces the idea that adults have often been adopted, too.
A + E 4ever

Ilike Merey

Asher Machnik is a teenage boy cursed with a beautiful androgynous face. Guys punch him, girls slag him and by high school he's developed an intense fear of being touched. Art remains his only escape. Eulalie Mason is the lonely, tough-talking dyke from school who befriends Ash, a fellow artist and a best friend...a + e 4EVER is a graphic novel set in that ambiguous crossroads where love and friendship, boy and girl, straight and gay meet. It goes where few books have ventured, into gender/queer life, where affections aren't black and white.
A Family for Jamie: An Adoption Story

Suzanne Bloom

Although Dan and Molly can make cookies and birdhouses, they cannot make a baby, so they adopt Jamie and share with him their life and love.
A Family is a Family is a Family

Sara O'Leary

When a teacher asks the children in her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different in many ways -- but the same in the one way that matters most of all. One child is worried that her family is just too different to explain, but listens as her classmates talk about what makes their families special. One is raised by a grandmother, and another has two dads. One is full of stepsiblings, and another has a new baby.
A Father Like That

Charlotte Zolotow

A young boy shares with his mother his daydreams about the father who left before he was born.
A Fire Engine for Ruthie

Lesléa Newman

Ruthie's Nana suggests playing tea party and fashion show during their visit, but Ruthie is much more interested in the vehicles that a neighbor boy is playing with as they pass his house each day.
A Forever Family

Roslyn Banish and Jennifer Jordan-Wong

Eight-year-old Jennifer Jordan-Wong describes her adoption by a family after four years of living as a foster child with many different families.
A Friendship for Today

Patrick C. McKissack

In 1954, when desegregation comes to Kirkland, Missouri, ten-year-old Rosemary faces many changes and challenges at school and at home as her parents separate.
After Ever After

Jordan Sonnenblick

Although Jeff and Tad, encouraged by a new friend, Lindsey, make a deal to help one another overcome aftereffects of their cancer treatments in preparation for eighth-grade graduation, Jeff still craves advice from his older brother Stephen, who is studying drums in Africa.
After the Fall

Kate Hart

Told from two viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Raychel relies on the support of her overachieving best friend Matt while secretly sleeping with his brother Andrew, and Matt tries to play hero and hide how much he loves her.
After Tupac & D Foster

Jacqueline Woodson

In the New York City borough of Queens in 1996, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur's music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.
Afterworlds

Scott Westerfeld

Darcy Patel has put college on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. With a contract in hand, she arrives in New York City with no apartment, no friends, and all the wrong clothes. But lucky for Darcy, she’s taken under the wings of other seasoned and fledgling writers who help her navigate the city and the world of writing and publishing. Over the course of a year, Darcy finishes her book, faces critique, and falls in love.
A Gift from Abuela

Cecilia Ruiz

The first time Abuela held Niña, her heart overflowed with tenderness. And as Niña grows up, she and Abuela have a lot of fun doing simple things. Abuela decides that she wants to buy Niña a special treat, so she saves a little bit of her money every week. But then something terrible happens, and Abuela's dream of a surprise for Niña seems impossible. Luckily, the time they spend together and the love they have for each other are the best gifts of all.
A Handful of Stars

Cynthia Lord

When her blind dog slips his collar, twelve-year old Lily meets Salma Santiago, a young Hispanic girl whose migrant family are in Maine for the blueberry-picking season, and, based partly on their mutual love of dogs, the two forge a friendship while painting bee boxes for Lily's grandfather--but as the Blueberry Queen pageant approaches Lily and Selma are confronted with some of the hard truths of prejudice and migrant life.
A Heart in a Body in the World

Deb Caletti

When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? From Seattle to Washington, DC, Annabelle is running through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She's not ready to think about the why yet, just the how - muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can't outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person - The Taker - that haunts her. Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appointed publicity team), Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to the trauma from her past. Her cross-country run gains media attention and she is cheered on as she crosses state borders, even thrown a block party and given gifts. The support would be nice, if Annabelle could escape the guilt and shame from what happened back home. They say it isn't her fault, but she can't feel the truth of that. Through welcome and unwelcome distractions, she just keep running to the destination that awaits her. There, she'll finally face the miles of love and loss behind her...and what still lies ahead.
A House Between Home: Youth in the Foster Care System

Joyce Libal

Discusses the laws that govern the foster care system, the newest and most innovative programs available today and provides an overview of the history of foster care, including the orphan trains and the British home children.
A is for Activist

Innosanto Nagara

A is for Activist is an ABC board book written and illustrated for the next generation of progressives: families who want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything else that activists believe in and fight for. The alliteration, rhyming, and vibrant illustrations make the book exciting for children, while the issues it brings up resonate with their parents' values of community, equality, and justice.
Aitor Has Two Moms (Aitor Tiene Dos Mamas)

María José Mendieta

Aitor has always wondered why he has two mothers, but it isn't until his best friend Imanol's parents forbid him from attending Aitor's ninth birthday party that Aitor sees how some in his small town see his family situation.
A Koala for Katie: An Adoption Story

Jonathan London

On a trip to the zoo, Katie gets a special present that helps her realize how much her adoptive parents love her.
Alan Cole Doesn't Dance

Eric Bell

As if it were not bad enough to be bullied for being gay while trying to navigate a budding relationship, Alan's father insists he take June Harrison to a school dance.
Alan Cole is Not a Coward

Eric Bell

Hoping to keep his older brother Nathan silent about his secret crush on another boy at their school, twelve-year-old Alan agrees to a ruthless sibling competition involving nearly impossible tasks--from standing up to their demanding father to getting a first kiss.