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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Since We're Friends: An Autism Picture Book

Celeste Shally

A boy describes his friendship with Matt, whose autism spectrum disorder causes him to behave strangely at times, and how he make things easier for Matt at school and in their neighborhood.
Singing Hands

Delia Ray

In the late 1940s, twelve-year-old Gussie, a minister's daughter, learns the definition of integrity while helping with a celebration at the Alabama School for the Deaf--her punishment for misdeeds against her deaf parents and their boarders.
Singing Tree and Laughing Water

Sylvia Hardwick

Relates the adventures of two Native American sisters after they go to live with a foster mother.
Single-Parent Families

Sarah L. Schuette

Simple text and photographs present single-parent families, including how family members interact with one another.
Sing to the Stars

Mary Brigid Barrett and Sandra Speidel

When Ephram becomes friends with a blind man in his neighborhood and finds out that Mr. Washington was a famous pianist who hasn't touched a piano for a long time, he resolves to get the man back on stage.
Sister Mischief

Laura Goode

Esme Rockett, also known as MC Ferocious, rocks her suburban Minnesota Christian high school with more than the hip-hop music she makes with best friends Marcy (DJ SheStorm) and Tess (The ConTessa) when she develops feelings for her co-MC, Rowie (MC Rohini).
Sisters

Judith Caseley

Kika has just been adopted -- and she's worried. There's so much that's new to her: a different language, new friends to make, and something she's never had before -- a family. Melissa has a new sister -- and she's excited. There's so much to share with Kika: trips to the playground, afternoons at the library, and birthday parties. Through each new experience, Kika and Melissa discover that sisterhood can be fun, challenging, and sometimes unpredictable, but always rewarding. Best of all, a sister is a friend for life.
Sister's Choice

Emilie Richards

Childless Kendra and husband Isaac accept an offer from Kendra's younger sister- single mom Jamie- to conceive and carry a child for them. But when a medical crisis threatens Jamie's health she learns that the most difficult choice in her life is yet to come.
Sister Split

Sally Warner

When her parents separate, eleven-year-old Ivy must cope not only with their impending divorce, but also with the unexpected impact it has on her relationship with her older sister.
Skateboard Sonar

Eric Stevens

Although blind, Matty is an excellent skateboarder, but when the former champion mocks him during the skating competition, Matty shows that seeing is not everything.
Skin

Adrienne Maria Vrettos

You don't have to be thin to feel small. Donnie's life is unraveling. His parents' marriage is falling apart, and his sister is slowly slipping away in the grip of her illness. To top it all off, he accidentally starts a rumor at school that hurts someone he cares about and leaves him an outcast. So Donnie does the only thing he knows how to do: He tries to fix things, to make everything the way it was before. Before his parents stopped loving each other, before his sister disappeared, before he was alone. But some things are beyond repair, and it will take all Donnie's strength to stop looking back and start moving forward again.
Skin Again

Bell Hooks

The skin I'm in is just a covering. It cannot tell my story. The skin I'm in is just a covering. If you want to know who I am you have got to come inside and open your heart way wide. Celebrating all that makes us unique and different, Skin Again offers new ways to talk about race and identity. Race matters, but only so much, what's most important is who we are on the inside.
Sky

Pamela Paige Porter

Eleven-year-old Georgia lives with her grandparents, Paw Paw and Gramma, on the edge of the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. Spring comes, and it rains and rains until one afternoon the creek behind their house suddenly becomes a wall of water, washing away everything the family owns: their house, their barn, and even Daisy, the only stuffed animal Georgia has ever had. Through sheer determination, Georgia and her grandparents gradually rebuild their lives, but it's not until Georgia finds Sky, a foal that somehow survived the flood, that the family begins to heal and find meaning again despite their losses. Based on the true story of Georgia Salois and written in the haunting voice of a young child, Sky vividly describes the historic flood of 1964 and its effect on Georgia and her people. Their courage in overcoming disaster, poverty, and discrimination provides young readers with a compelling portrayal of endurance.
Skyscraping

Cordelia Jensen

In 1993 in New York City, high school senior Mira uncovers many secrets, including that her father has a male lover.
Slant

Laura E. Williams

Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called "slant" and "gook," and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish--and a long-kept secret about her mother's death is revealed--Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.
Sliding into Home

Nina Vincent

Thirteen-year-old Flip Simpson's ideal life just began to crumble. His adoptive parents are splitting up. He's moving from the only home he's ever known. He has to leave before his baseball team finishes the playoffs. And his little sister is his only companion. Flip folds under the weight of so much loss until he meets Ricki, an indigenous classmate who loves baseball and gives Flip a sense of pride in his Mayan roots, and Zorba, an eccentric houseboat dweller who is a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Willy Wonka. Zorba possesses an uncanny ability to sense Flip's fears and doubts and inspires the courage Flip needs to overcome both. Just as life begins to look up, Flip is faced with the challenge of a racist bully. Steve picks at the wounds Flip has tried so hard to mend and brings to the surface questions Flip didn't know he had about race, culture and belonging. Will Flip rise to the challenge and face Steve, or retreat into himself once again?
Small Things

Mel Tregonning

In this wordless graphic picture book, a young boy feels alone with his worries. He isn't fitting in well at school. His grades are slipping. He's even lashing out at those who love him. This short but hard-hitting wordless graphic picture book gets to the heart of childhood anxiety and opens the way for dialogue about acceptance, vulnerability, and the universal experience of worry.
Soames on the Range

Nancy Belgue

After he gets in trouble at school for fighting, fifteen-year-old San Francisco "Cisco" Soames is sent by his hippy parents to live with his renegade uncle on a dude ranch.
Social Intercourse

Greg Howard

Told from both viewpoints, Beckett Gaines, an out-and-proud choir member, and star quarterback Jaxon Parker team up to derail the budding romance between their parents.
Solace of the Road

Siobhan Dowd

While running away from a London foster home just before her fifteenth birthday, Holly has ample time to consider her years of residential care and her early life with her Irish mother, whom she is now trying to reach.
Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen

Arin Andrews

Seventeen-year-old Arin Andrews shares all the hilarious, painful, and poignant details of undergoing gender reassignment as a high school student in this winning teen memoir.
Somebody's Daughter

Zara Phillips

A hard-hitting and witty memoir about an adopted woman's lifelong quest to find her birth parents - and her identity. It is the fascinating and revealing account of how a beautiful woman's life has been dominated by her adoption and how it has affected her and those around her.
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

Peter Cameron

Eighteen-year-old James living in New York City with his older sister and divorced mother struggles to find a direction for his life.
Some Kids Just Can't Sit Still

Sam Goldstein

Rhyming text describes how difficult life can be for a child with Attention deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and how parents, teachers, and doctors can help.
Some Kind of Happiness

Claire Legrand

Finley Hart is sent to her grandparents' house for the summer, but her overwhelmingly sad days continue until she escapes into her writings, which soon turn mysteriously real as she realises she must save this magical world in order to save herself.