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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Someone Has Led This Child to Believe

Regina Louise

After years of jumping from one fleeting, often abusive home to the next, Louise meets a counselor named Jeanne Kerr. For the first time in her young life, Louise knows what it means to be seen, wanted, understood, and loved. After Kerr tries unsuccessfully to adopt Louise, the two are ripped apart—seemingly forever—and Louise continues her passage through the cold cinder-block landscape of a broken system, enduring solitary confinement, overmedication, and the actions of adults who seem hell-bent on convincing her that she deserves nothing, that she is nothing. But instead of losing her will to thrive, Louise remains determined to achieve her dream of a higher education. After she ages out of the system, Louise is thrown into adulthood and, haunted by her trauma, struggles to finish school, build a career, and develop relationships. As she puts it, it felt impossible “to understand how to be in the world.” Eventually, Louise learns how to confront her past and reflect on her traumas. She starts writing, quite literally, a new future for herself, a new way to be. Louise weaves together raw, sometimes fragmented memories, excerpts from real documents from her case file, and elegant reflections to tell the story of her painful upbringing and what came after. The result is a rich, engrossing account of one abandoned girl’s efforts to find her place in the world, people to love, and people to love her back.
Someone Like Summer

M.E. Kerr

An upper-middle-class white girl from Long Island and an immigrant worker from Colombia fall in love despite objections from both their families and their community.
Some People Have Two Dads

Luca Panzini and Fabri Kramer

This first book from the Some Families series is about Daisy, a happy little girl with two dads. We follow her through the story of her birthday and learn how fathers were helped by a surrogate to bring Daisy into their lives. An increasing number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) couples are having children through surrogacy, co-parenting, donor, and adoption.
Some People Have Two Mums

Fabri Framer and Luca Panzini

This second book from the Some Families series is about Milo, a happy little boy with two mums. We follow him through his bedtime routine and learn how his mothers were helped by a donor to bring Milo into their lives. An increasing number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) couples are having children through surrogacy, co-parenting, donor, and adoption.
Sometimes it's Grandmas and Grandpas, Not Mommies and Daddies

Gayle Byrne

A young girl who lives with her grandparents experiences warmth, love, and closeness, even when she wonders why her parents are not raising her.
Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry

Bebe Moore Campbell

A little girl learns coping skills with the help of her grandmother, neighbors and school friends, when her mother's mental illness disrupts her daily routine.
Sometimes Noise is Big: Life with Autism

Angela Coelho

Sometimes noise is too big for my ears. Sometimes the light is too loud for my eyes. I have autism and this means that sometimes the world around me is just too much! This book will help you to see the world through my eyes and to understand why I react to things the way I do. Flipping the perspective for neurotypicals, this book explains in simple terms some of the sensory issues experienced by children with autism. It shows situations which can be overwhelming and the ways that somebody with autism might react when there is too much going on. This picture book raises awareness of autism and helps young children of all abilities to better understand these issues.
Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon: Coloring Book

Jacinta Bunnell

Re-creating nursery rhymes and fairy tales, this radical activity book takes anecodotes from the lives of real kids and mixes them with classic tales to create true-to-life characters, situations, and resolutions.
Sometimes We Were Brave

Pat Brisson

Jerome's mother is a sailor in the United States Navy, and when she is away at sea he tries to be brave even though misses her and has some bad days.
Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds

Jorge Argueta

Poems describe the experiences of young Central Americans as they leave the dangers of their own countries to undertake the risky journey north to seek relative safety in the United States.
Sonya's Family (All Kinds of Families)

Elliot Riley

There are many types of families. Meet Sonya's family. Her parents are divorced so she spends time with each of them separately.
Sosu's Call

Meshack Asare

When a great storm threatens, Sosu, an African boy who is unable to walk, joins his dog Fusa in helping save their village.
So Totally Emily Ebers

Lisa Yee

In a series of letters to her absent father, twelve-year-old Emily Ebers deals with moving cross-country, her parents' divorce, a new friendship, and her first serious crush.
Sparkle Boy

Leslea Newman

Three-year-old Casey wants what his older sister, Jessie, has--a shimmery skirt, glittery painted nails, and a sparkly bracelet--but Jessie does not approve until an encounter with two bullies helps her evolve to a place of acceptance of her gender creative younger brother.
Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie

S.J. Adams

A sixteen-year-old lesbian tries to get over a crush on her religious best friend by embarking on a "holy quest" with a couple of misfits who have invented a wacky, made-up faith called the Church of Blue.
Speaking Out

Steve Berman

Speaking Out features stories for and about LGBT and Q teens by fresh voices and noted authors in the field of young adult literature. These are inspiring stories of overcoming adversity (against intolerance and homophobia) and experiencing life after "coming out." Queer teens need tales of what might happen next in their lives, and editor Steve Berman showcases a diversity of events, challenges, and, especially, triumphs.
Special People, Special Ways

Arlene H. Maguire

A poem about the ways in which people with many differences in physical and mental ability share the same human needs for love and understanding.
Speranza's Sweater

Marcy Pusey

Speranza wears her sweater everywhere, hanging onto the last memories of her birth home, until it's threadbare. Like her unraveled sweater, Speranza must weave together a new story, brining threads from her past and strands from her present, into a future of love, family and the true meaning of home.
Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement

Rick Bowers

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission compiled secret files on more than 87,000 private citizens in the most extensive state spying program in U.S. history. Its mission: to save segregation.
Splish, Splat!

Alexis Domney

When Colin asks to have his bedroom painted, his mother hires two deaf professionals to do the job, but when the two painters Betty and Molly get too chatty on the job, they produce an unintended effect on the walls.
Split

Swati Avasthi

A teenaged boy thrown out of his house by his abusive father goes to live with his older brother, who ran away from home years ago to escape the abuse.
Sprout

Dale Peck

When Sprout and his father move from Long Island to Kansas after the death of his mother, he is sure he will find no friends, no love, no beauty. But friends find him, the strangeness of the landscape fascinates him, and when love shows up in an unexpected place, it proves impossible to hold. An incredible, literary story of a boy who knows he's gay, and the town that seems to have no place for him to hide.
Standing on My Own Two Feet: A Child's Affirmation of Love in the Midst of Divorce

Tamara Schmitz

Addison's parents are divorced and he lives in one house with his mom and another with his dad, but one thing he knows above all is that both his parents love him and they always will.
Stand Straight, Ella Kate: The True Story of a Real Giant

Kate Klise

Ella Kate Ewing was born in 1872. She started out small, but she just kept on growing. Soon she was too tall for her desk at school, too tall for her bed at home, too tall to fit anywhere. Ella Kate was a real-life giant, but she refused to hide herself away. Instead, she used her unusual height to achieve her equally large dreams. The masterful Klise sisters deliver a touching and inspiring true story about a strong-minded girl who finally embraced her differences. It's the perfect book for every child who has ever felt like an outsider.
Star-Crossed

Barbara Dee

When Mattie is cast as Romeo in an eighth-grade play, she is confused to find herself increasingly attracted to Gemma, a new classmate who is playing Juliet.