Direct Diversity

Follow

• 

  Holly's Secret

  Nancy Garden

  When she starts middle school, eleven-year-old Holly decides to become sophisticated and feminine, change her name to Yvette, and hide the fact that her two moms are lesbians.

• 

  Home: A Collaboration of Thirty Distinguised Authors and Illustrators of Children's Books to Aid the Homeless

  Michael J. Rosen and Franz Brandenberg

  Thirteen authors and seventeen illustrators celebrate the places and things that make up the home, in support of Share Our Strength's (SOS) fight against homelessness.

• 

  Home After Dark

  David Small

  A savage portrayal of male adolescence gone awry, like no other work of recent fiction or film. Wildly kaleidoscopic and furiously cinematic, Home After Dark is a literary tour-de-force that renders the brutality of adolescence in the so-called nostalgic 1950s, evoking classics such as The Lord of the Flies. Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to California in search of a dream. Forced to fend for himself, Russell struggles to survive in Marshfield, a dilapidated town haunted by a sadistic animal killer and a ring of malicious boys who bully Russell for being "queer." Rescued from his booze-swilling father by Wen and Jian Mah, a Chinese immigrant couple who long for a child, Russell betrays them by running away with their restaurant's proceeds.

• 

  Home Again

  Dorinda Silver Williams

  Mommies and daddies are coming home after military service. Different children react in different ways.

• 

  Home At Last

  Vera B. Williams

  After Lester is adopted from his foster home by Daddy Albert and Daddy Rich, he can't fall asleep in his new bed. What will it take to make Lester feel home at last?

• 

  Homelessness in America Today

  Jennifer Bringle

  Discusses homelessness in the United States, including a brief history, the effects of the recent economic recession on the homelessness rates in the nation, and what can be done to end homelessness.

• 

  Homesick

  Kate Klise

  Benny's parents are getting divorced, his mom left and his father has become a hoarder, and to make matters worse his hometown has been entered into a contest, and now the pressure is on to get the house cleaned up.

• 

  Honestly Ben

  Bill Konigsberg

  Ben Carver returns for the spring semester at the exclusive Natick School in Massachusetts determined to put his relationship with Rafe Goldberg behind him and concentrate on his grades and the award that will mean a full scholarship--but Rafe is still there, there is a girl named Hannah whom he meets in the library, and behind it all is his relationship with his distant, but demanding father.

• 

  Honor Girl

  Maggie Thrash

  Maggie Thrash has spent basically every summer of her fifteen-year-old life at the one-hundred-year-old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She’s from Atlanta, she’s never kissed a guy, she’s into Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful nothing . . . until one confounding moment. A split-second of innocent physical contact pulls Maggie into a gut-twisting love for an older, wiser, and most surprising of all (at least to Maggie), female counselor named Erin. But Camp Bellflower is an impossible place for a girl to fall in love with another girl, and Maggie’s savant-like proficiency at the camp’s rifle range is the only thing keeping her heart from exploding. When it seems as if Erin maybe feels the same way about Maggie, it’s too much for both Maggie and Camp Bellflower to handle, let alone to understand.

• 

  Hoods

  Angela Betzien

  Each night two hoods ride a train to a wrecking yard on the outskirts of the city. Here, in this cemetery of stories, they are storytellers with the power to fast forward, pause and rewind. Tonight, they tell the story of three kids left in a car. Rewind. It’s Friday, KFC night and the last day of school before Christmas. Kyle, Jessie and baby brother Troy are waiting in the car for their mum. As night approaches the car park takes on a dark and sinister aspect filled with strange and familiar characters. The shopping centre closes, Mum still hasn’t returned and the baby won’t stop crying. Exploring issues of poverty and family violence, Hoods is a suburban tale of survival and solidarity against the odds.

• 

  Hooper

  Geoff Herbach

  For Adam Reed, basketball is a passport. Adam’s basketball skills have taken him from an orphanage in Poland to a loving adoptive mother in Minnesota. When he’s tapped to play on a select AAU team along with some of the best players in the state, it just confirms that basketball is his ticket to the good life: to new friendships, to the girl of his dreams, to a better future. But life is more complicated off the court. When an incident with the police threatens to break apart the bonds Adam’s finally formed after a lifetime of struggle, he must make an impossible choice between his new family and the sport that’s given him everything.

• 

  Hope and Will Have a Baby: The Gift of Embryo Donation

  Irene Celcer

  Hope and Will fall in love, get married, and try very hard to have a baby before their doctor tells them that they need a special loving couple to donate an embryo which the doctor would place in Hope's uterus.

• 

  Hope and Will Have a Baby: The Gift of Surrogacy

  Irene Celcer

  Hope and Will fall in love, get married, and try very hard to have a baby before their doctor tells them that they need a surrogate mother to carry their baby in her uterus.

• 

  Horace

  Holly Keller

  Horace, an adopted child, realizes that being part of a family depends on how you feel and not how you look.

• 

  Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet

  Sheri L. Smith

  Disaster strikes when Ana Shen is about to deliver the salutatorian speech at her junior high school graduation, but an even greater crisis looms when her best friend invites a crowd to Ana's house for dinner, and Ana's multicultural grandparents must find a way to share a kitchen.

• 

  House of Robots: Robot Revolution (House of Robots Series Book 3)

  James Patterson

  Robots on strike! Sammy's underappreciated mechanical helpers are causing chaos in book 3 of the bestselling House of Robots series

• 

  How are We the Same and Different?

  Bobbie Kalman

  We are the same because we are all human beings. We are also the same because we are all different. We have thoughts, ideas, beliefs, talents, and dreams, but how we think and act makes us who we are. This book encourages children to honor their own uniqueness and that of others through new ideas and positive actions.

• 

  How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity

  Michael Cart

  Presents twelve stories by contemporary, award-winning young adult authors, some presented in graphic or letter format, which explore themes of gender identity, love, and sexuality.

• 

  How I Became a Writer and Oggie Learned to Drive

  Janet Taylor Lisle

  A young writer's fantasy world becomes dangerously entangled with reality. Eleven-year-old Archie and his six-year-old brother, Oggie, are constantly going back and forth between their mother's home and the apartment that their father shares with his girlfriend. To distract Oggie from the turbulence of endlessly bouncing from "Saturn" to "Jupiter" and back again, Archie invents a fantastic story about the Mysterious Mole People. When Oggie's wallet is stolen by kids from a local gang, Archie tries to retrieve it and becomes increasingly ensnared in the gang's dangerous activities. Even worse, he soon finds that his fictitious mole story is merging with the darkness of real life in a very frightening way.

• 

  How I Learn: A Kids Guide to Learning Disability

  Brenda S. Miles and Colleen A. Patterson

  How I Learn introduces the concept of a learning disability in concrete terms for younger students. This supportive and upbeat story reassures readers that they are capable, and can use 'smart strategies' to help themselves learn. And that's better than OK. That's GREAT! A note to parents, caregivers, and professionals is included, with suggestions to guide discussion and help children identify their particular strengths and challenges.

• 

  How I Learned English: The Story of a Brave Mexican Girl

  Paula Massadas Pereira

  How I Learned English describes the journey of Claudia Sanchez, a young woman who immigrates to the United States. It is a pedagogical picture book that aims to inspire English learners to become proficient in their new language. It was written in basic English to ensure reading comprehension. Study questions are available to encourage discussion. Major topics: ESL, immigration, study skills, culture shock, and cultural values.

• 

  How I Learned Geography

  Uri Shulevitz

  As he spends hours studying his father's world map, a young boy escapes the hunger and misery of refugee life. Based on the author's childhood in Kazakhstan, where he lived as a Polish refugee during World War II.

• 

  How I Saved My Father's Life (And Ruined Everything Else)

  Ann Hood

  After her father leaves and marries the glamorous Ava Pomme, Madeline blames her mother for their difficult new life, but in spite of the twelve-year-old's efforts to achieve sainthood, it takes a summer trip to Italy to put her family into perspective.

• 

  How It Feels to Float

  Helen Fox

  A gutting, profound, deeply hopeful portrayal of living with mental illness and grief, this modern-day Bell Jar marks the arrival of an exceptional new talent in the YA space. Biz knows how to float. She has her people, her posse, her mom and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, who loves her so hard, and who shouldn't be here but is. So Biz doesn't tell anyone anything. Not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she doesn't tell anyone about her dad. Because her dad died when she was six. And Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface--normal okay regular fine. But after what happens on the beach--first in the ocean, and then in the sand--the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. Dad disappears, and with him, all comfort. It might be easier, better, sweeter to float all the way away? Or maybe stay a little longer, find her father, bring him back to her. Or maybe--maybe maybe maybe--there's a third way Biz just can't see yet. In this mesmerizing, radiant debut, Helena Fox tells a story about love and grief and family and friendship, about inter-generational mental illness, and how living with it is both a bridge to someone loved and lost and also a chasm. She explores the hard, bewildering, and beautiful places loss can take us, and honors those who hold us tightly when the current wants to tug us out to sea.

• 

  How It Feels To Have A Gay Or Lesbian Parent: A Book By Kids For Kids Of All Ages

  Judith Snow

  Children, adolescents, and young adults here talk openly and candidly about how and when they learned of their parent's sexual orientation and the effect it had on them and their families, covering themes of prejudice, harassment, conflict and confusion, as well as hope for tolerance and family harmony.