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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One April Morning: Children Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing

Nancy Lamb

Conversations with children from the Oklahoma City area about their feelings at the time of the bombing of the Federal Building and afterwards.
One Crazy Summer

Rita Williams-Garcia

In the summer of 1968, after traveling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.
One Family

George Shannon

A family can be many things, in this story that introduces numbered groups from one to ten.
One for the Murphys

Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Follows the experiences of foster kid Carley, who uses humor and street smarts to cope with her unpredictable life until the loving, bustling Murphy family offers her more stability and a greater sense of belonging than she ever thought possible.
One Green Apple

Eve Bunting

While on a school field trip to an orchard to make cider, a young immigrant named Farah gains self-confidence when the green apple she picks perfectly complements the other students' red apples.
One-Handed Catch

Mary Jane Auch

After losing his hand in an accident in his father's butcher shop in 1946, sixth-grader Norman uses hard work and humor to learn to live with his disability and to succeed at baseball, art, and other activities.
One in Every Crowd

Ivan E. Coyote

Stories for everyone who has ever felt alone in their struggle to be true to themselves. These are honest, wry, plain-spoken tales about gender, identity, and family
One Man Guy

Michael Barakiva Barakiva

Alek Khederian should have guessed something was wrong when his parents took him to a restaurant. Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Why bother, when their home cooking is far superior to anything these Americans could come up with? Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek's parents announce that he'll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshmen year of high school. He never could've predicted that he'd meet someone like Ethan. Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. When Ethan gets Alek to cut school and go to a Rufus Wainwright concert in New York City's Central Park, Alek embarks on his first adventure outside the confines of his suburban New Jersey existence. He can't believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend--he's barely ever had a girlfriend--but maybe it's time to think again. Michael Barakiva's One Man Guy is a romantic, moving, laugh-out-loud-funny story about what happens when one person cracks open your world and helps you see everything--and, most of all, yourself--like you never have before.
One More Giraffe

Kim Noble

Reading this book to your child will help you begin to introduce the key concepts about babies and egg donation. It is very simple and touches the subject of how some people (in this case giraffes) need help to be able to be a Mommy or a Daddy. The key idea is that the baby is wanted very badly and will be loved and cherished. If you have been searching for a way to introduce your toddler to the concepts of being a baby that was born via egg donation...look no more.
One More Step

Sheree Fitch

Fourteen-year-old Julian's parents separated when he was a baby and he is still angry and hurt. His mother has had relationships since -- all of which have ended disastrously -- but this time it seems serious. Jean-Paul looks like he might be the real thing. Julian is wary and critical as he comes to terms with the fact that he and his brother may have to let down their defenses and allow their mother to find happiness. On a road trip with his mother and her new beau, Julian finds that love and happiness come in many guises. In the end, he realizes that it is not blood that determines true family, but the willingness to stand together.
One Potato, Two Potato

Cynthia DeFelice

This retelling of a Chinese folktale pays tribute to the author's Irish heritage, and to the joys of an old marriage, new friendships, and the impulse to share. Using pen and gouache, the artist shows the "simple" characters in all their winning complexity. A very poor, humble couple live so simple a life they share everything, until the husband discovers a pot with magical powers buried under the very last potato in the garden. Mr. and Mrs. O'Grady are so poor they have just one of everything to share - one potato a day, one chair, one blanket full of holes, and one gold coin for a rainy day. After digging up the last potato in their patch, Mr. O'Grady comes upon a big black object. It's a pot - no ordinary pot, for what they soon discover is that whatever goes into it comes out doubled! Suddenly the O'Gradys aren't destitute anymore. But what they really long for is one friend apiece. Can the magic pot give them that?
One TV Blasting and a Pig Outdoors

Deborah Abbott and Henry Kisor

What’s it like to have a deaf father? As Conan explains, it’s not so different—but it’s always interesting. Conan tells how his father Henry Kisor learned to read and speak, made his way through “regular” schools, and grew up to be a newspaper editor and author. Conan also describes the challenges of lipreading and the technological advances that have made communication easier for his dad.
Only the Lonely

Laura Dower

Madison Finn uses her computer journal and the Internet to cope with many changes as she starts seventh grade--her parents' divorce, the arrival of a new girl in town, and separation from her two best friends.
Openly Straight

Bill Konigsberg

Tired of being known as "the gay kid," Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school--but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.
Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices

Mitali Perkins

Let's face it: Talking about race can be difficult. It's a slippery subject, rife with as many perspectives as there are people in the world. But laughter gets us talking. It has the power to break down barriers and draw us closer together. In Open Mic, acclaimed author and speaker Mitali Perkins invites us to listen in as ten authors for young adults-some familiar, some new-step up to the mic and share their stories about what it's like growing up between cultures.
Opposite of Always

Justin A. Reynolds

After falling for Kate, her unexpected death sends Jack back in time to the moment they first met. He soon learns that his actions have consequences when someone else close to him dies.
Oranges on Golden Mountain

Elizabeth Partridge

Being sent from China to work with his uncle on Golden Mountain, Jo Lee's mother gives him words of encouragement to see him through the difficult transition to his new life in a new world in late-nineteenth-century California.
Orbiting Jupiter

Gary D. Schmidt

Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he'll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice.
Oskar and the Eight Blessings

Tanya Simon and Richard Simon

A young Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany arrives in New York City on the seventh night of Hanukkah and receives small acts of kindness while exploring the city.
Our Baby from China: An Adoption Story

Nancy D'Antonio

An American couple goes to China to adopt a baby.
Our Gracie Aunt

Jacqueline Woodson

When a brother and sister are taken to stay with their mother's sister because their mother neglects them, they wonder if they will see their mother again.
Our Own Private Universe

Robin Talley

Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon has a theory. And it's mostly about sex. No, it isn't that kind of theory. Aki already knows she's bisexual, even if, until now, it's mostly been in the hypothetical sense. Aki has dated only guys so far, and her best friend, Lori, is the only person who knows she likes girls, too. Actually, Aki's theory is that she's got only one shot at living an interesting life-- and that means she's got to stop sitting around and thinking so much. It's time for her to actually do something. Or at least try. So when Aki and Lori set off on a church youth-group trip to a small Mexican town for the summer and Aki meets Christa-- slightly older, far more experienced-- it seems her theory is prime for the testing. But it's not going to be easy. For one thing, how exactly do two girls have sex, anyway? And more important, how can you tell if you're in love? It's going to be a summer of testing theories, and the result may just be love.
Our Son, a Stranger: Adoption Breakdown and its Effects on Parents

Marie Adams

In 1973 Marie and Rod Adams, brimming with idealism and keenly aware of the plight of disadvantaged aboriginal children, adopted Tim, a young Cree boy, two and one-half years old. Tim began displaying severe behavioural problems almost immediately, problems that, despite their efforts to find help, only became worse over the years. He left home at the age of twelve and died on the streets when he was twenty-one.
Out of Darkness

Ashley Hope Perez

Loosely based on a school explosion that took place in New London, Texas in 1937, this is the story of two teenagers: Naomi, who is Mexican, and Wash, who is black, and their dealings with race, segregation, love, and the forces that destroy people.
Out of My Mind

Sharon M. Draper

Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory. She can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom, the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged, because she cannot tell them otherwise. Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy, and she's determined to let everyone know it, somehow.