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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Starfish

Akemi Dawn Bowman

Kiko Himura yearns to escape the toxic relationship with her mother by getting into her dream art school, but when things do not work out as she hoped Kiko jumps at the opportunity to tour art schools with her childhood friend, learning life-changing truths about herself and her past along the way.
Star of the Week: A Story of Love, Adoption, and Brownies with Sprinkles

Darlene Friedman

As her turn to be "Star of the Week" in her kindergarten class approaches, Cassidy-Li puts together a poster with pictures of her family, friends, and pets, and wonders about her birthparents in China.
Starting from Here

Lisa Jenn Jenn

Sixteen-year-old Colby is barely hanging on with her mother dead, her long-haul trucker father often away, her almost-girlfriend dumping her for a boy, and her failing grades, when a stray dog appears and helps her find hope.
Stay

Katherine Lawrence

Millie is eleven going on twelve, and facing her toughest problems yet as she struggles with changes to her family. Her father moves out of the house and faces a cancer diagnosis, and her mother moves on with a new boyfriend. To cope, Millie distracts herself by speaking to her twin brother, Billy (who died before he was born), and dreams of the day she can convince her family to get a puppy.
Steggie's Stutter

Jack Hughes

Steggie has a stutter and sometimes it takes her a bit longer than others to get her words out. Her friends are in a hurry to play a game and rush off without listening to her warning into the Deep, Dark and Scary Forest. Before long, the friends get into trouble and it's up to Steggie to rescue them. But will they listen to her advice?
Stella Brings the Family

Miriam B. Schiffer

Stella brings her two fathers to school to celebrate Mother's Day.
Stella by Starlight

Sharon M. Draper

When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.
Stephen Hawking: Extraordinary Theoretical Physicist

Karen Latchana Kenney

Chronicles the life and career of the theoretical physicist, from his battle with ALS to his work on black holes.
Stewie BOOM! and Princess Penelope: Handprints, Snowflakes and Playdates

Christine Bronstein

At school, Penelope’s teacher encourages the class to play with someone new at recess so that they can see that minds, like handprints and snowflakes, are one of a kind. Penelope chooses Eric and they have so much fun she invites him over for a play-date. Before he arrives, Penelope’s Mom tells her that Eric’s mind is called “on the spectrum,” and so his unique preferences might be different from the ones she’s used to. To prepare, they practice using quiet voices, listening with their eyes, and being flexible. As their play-date unfolds, Penelope and Eric show readers the many ways that families can embrace neuro-diversity.
Stick Boy

Joan T. Zeier

When a seven-inch growth spurt in the sixth grade makes skinny, self-conscious Eric a school misfit and the victim of the class bully, he is led to befriend Cynthia, a proud and spirited black girl who is disabled.
Sticky Beak

Morris Gleitzman

When she rescues a mistreated cockatoo, mute Rowena finds herself in more trouble than usual, but her actions finally reveal her true concern, that her new mother's impending baby is a replacement for her because she isn't perfect.
Still a Family

Brenda Reeves Sturgis

A little girl and her parents have lost their home and must live in a homeless shelter. Even worse, due to a common shelter policy, her dad must live in a men's shelter, separated from her and her mom. Despite these circumstances, the family still finds time to be together. They meet at the park to play hide-and-seek, slide on slides, and pet puppies. While the young girl wishes for better days when her family is together again under a roof of their very own, she continues to remind herself that they're still a family even in times of separation.
Still Life with Tornado

A. S. King

A talented 16-year-old artist slowly discovers the history of domestic violence behind why her brother left the family years earlier and why she suddenly cannot make art.
Still Waters

Ash Parsons Parsons

High-schooler Jason, who lives with a drunk, abusive father at home, hopes to earn enough money to escape with his younger sister, Janie, by being tough at school, but the stakes grow ever more dangerous and soon even his fists and ability to think on his feet are not enough to keep his head above water.
Stinky

Ted Staunton

Janice, who really wants to be know as Greer, is a little overweight and more than a little bossy when it comes to struggling to be heard at school. The fact that her parents are separated and she spends half her life living in a trailer at the edge of town visited by skunks that don't hesitate to spray if they hear a sudden noise does not help her self-confidence. Janice wants to get her parents back together in time for her birthday, but this proves harder than she realizes.
Stitches

David Small

One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. Believing that they were trying to do their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. Edward Small, a Detroit physician, who vented his own anger by hitting a punching bag, was convinced that he could cure his young son’s respiratory problems with heavy doses of radiation, possibly causing David’s cancer. Elizabeth, David’s mother, tyrannically stingy and excessively scolding, ran the Small household under a cone of silence where emotions, especially her own, were hidden.
Stork M.I.A.

Sandro Isaack

Dad Dad Mom Mom is a picture book series that features the episodes in the lives of Dad and Dad, and Mom and Mom. Its aim is to create a picture book universe for children of Same Gender Couples. STORK M.I.A. is the first volume of this self-published children's book series. It follows the story of Dad and Dad, who were tired of waiting for the Stork, and decided to find her and ask for a baby. They search for the Stork around the world, with the help of Mom and Mom, turning this story into an adventure, rather than a didactic book for children of same gender couples.
Stranded

Ben Mikaelsen

Twelve-year-old Koby, who has lost a foot in an accident, sees a chance to prove her self-reliance to her parents when she tries to rescue two stranded pilot whales near her home in the Florida Keys.
Stranded in Boringsville

Catherine Bateson

Following her parents' separation, twelve-year-old Rain moves with her mother to the country, where she befriends the unpopular boy who lives next door and also seeks a way to cope with her feelings toward her father and his new girlfriend.
Strawberry Moon

Karen English

While driving to Auntie Dot's house, Junie tells her children about spending fifth grade there during her parent's separation many years earlier, when finding a best friend seemed almost as important as seeing her mother again.
Street Dreams

Tama Wise

Tyson Rua has more than his fair share of problems growing up in South Auckland. Working a night job to support his mother and helping bring up his two younger brothers is just the half of it. His best friend Rawiri is falling afoul of a broken home, and now Tyson's fallen in love at first sight. Only thing is, it's another guy. Living life on the sidelines of the local hip-hop scene, Tyson finds that to succeed in becoming a local graffiti artist or in getting the man of his dreams, he's going to have to get a whole lot more involved. And that means more problems. The least of which is the leader of the local rap crew he's found himself running with. Love, life, and hip-hop never do things by half.
Stuck in Neutral

Terry Trueman

Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function physically in any way, not even to show his intelligence and awareness of his life, his family, and his condition. How does he cope with the suspicion that his father is planning to kill him?
Stuck Rubber Baby

Howard Cruse

In the 1960s American South, a young gas station attendant named Toland Polk is rejected from the Army draft for admitting 'homosexual tendencies,' and falls in with a close-knit group of young locals yearning to break from the conformity of their hometown through civil rights activism, folk music, and gay-friendly nightclubs.
Stuck with the Blooz

Caron Levis

When a monster named the Blooz comes to visit, a child copes with emotions in this whimsical debut picture book about having--and getting rid of--the blues.
Stumpkin

Lucy Ruth Cummins

A stemless pumpkin that yearns to be a Halloween jack-o-lantern watches sadly as all of the other pumpkins in the shop are chosen.