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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The Wall

William Sutcliffe

In an isolated town that closely resembles the West Bank, thirteen-year-old Joshua discovers that his world may not be as it seems; that his people may be aggressors rather than victims; and that he must stand up to his stepfather and forge his own sense of right and wrong.
The Warden's Daughter

Jerry Spinelli

Living with her warden father in an apartment above a 1950s prison, Cammie O'Reilly struggles to come to terms with the loss of her mother, who died saving her from harm when she was a baby, and interacts with some of the reformed inmates. This is a tale of loss and redemption.
The War That Saved My Life

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

A young disabled girl and her brother are evacuated from London to the English countryside during World War II, where they find life to be much sweeter away from their abusive mother.
The Weight of a Thousand Feathers

Brian Conaghan

Seventeen-year-old Bobby Seed, the devoted but exhausted primary caregiver for his terminally-ill mother and difficult younger brother, finds respite in a support group and good friends, but must face his mother's impossible choice alone
The Weight of Our Sky

Hanna Alkaf

Amidst the Chinese-Malay conflict in Kuala Lumpur in 1969, sixteen-year-old Melati must overcome prejudice, violence, and her own OCD to find her way back to her mother.
The White Swan Express

Elaine M. Aoki and Jean Davies Okimoto

Across North America, people in four different homes prepare for a special trip to China, while four baby girls in China await their new adoptive parents.
The Window

Michael Dorris

When ten-year-old Rayona's Native American mother enters a treatment facility, her estranged father, a Black man, finally introduces her to his side of the family, who are not at all what she expected.
The Window

Jeanette Ingold

Mandy survived the terrible accident that killed her mother, but she was left blind and alone. Now she lives with relatives she doesn't know, attends a new school, and tries to make friends--all the while struggling to function without sight. Her unpredictable life takes its strangest turn when she begins to hear the oddest things through the window of her attic room. In fact, what she hears--and seems to "see"--are events that happened years ago, before she was even born.
The World of Normal Boys

K.M. Soehnlein

The time is the late 1970s -- an age of gas shortages, head shops, and Saturday Night Fever. The place, suburban New Jersey. At a time when the teenagers around him are coming of age, Robin MacKenzie is coming undone. While "normal boys" are into cars, sports, and bullying their classmates, Robin enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother, spinning fantastic tales for her amusement in an intimate ritual he has come to love. He dutifully plays the role of the good son for his meat-and-potatoes father, even as his own mind is a jumble of sexual confusion and painful self-doubt. But everything changes in one horrifying instant, when a tragic accident wakes his family from their middle-American dream and plunges them into a spiral of slow destruction.
They Both Die at the End

Adam Silvera

In a near-future New York City where a service alerts people on the day they will die, teenagers Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio meet using the Last Friend app and are faced with the challenge of living a lifetime on their End Day.
They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group

Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Documents the history and origin of the Ku Klux Klan from its beginning in Pulaski, Tennessee, and provides personal accounts, congressional documents, diaries, and more.
They Chose Me: A Story of Grandparent Adoption

Rhonda Beheler

A little boy learns for the first time how he came to live with and be adopted by his grandparents.
The Year I Didn't Eat

Samuel Pollen

Fourteen-year-old Max records his efforts to control his anorexia in a therapist-prescribed journal that also chronicles his parents' difficult relationship and his feelings for a new girl at school, Evie.
The Year of the Baby

Andrea Cheng

Anna and her best friends Laura and Camille return in an engaging new story. Anna's family has adopted a new baby from China, but her new sister is not thriving and refuses to eat. When Anna and her friends are assigned a science experiment in school, they decide to use the assignment as a way to help Baby Kaylee.
The Year of the Fortune Cookie

Andrea Cheng

Eleven-year-old Anna takes a trip to China and learns more about herself and her Chinese heritage.
The Year the Swallows Came Early

Kathryn Fitzmaurice

After her father is sent to jail, eleven-year-old Groovy Robinson must decide if she can forgive the failings of someone she loves.
They Never Came Back

Caroline B. Cooney

When fifteen-year-old Cathy decides to carpool from Norwalk to tony Greenwich, Connecticut, to study Latin in summer school, she does not expect the shocking events that occured five years earlier to suddenly come flooding back into her relatively settled life.
Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

Susan Vaught

A family mystery leads Dani Beans to investigate the secrets of Ole Miss and the dark history of race relations in Oxford, Mississippi.
This Book is Gay

James Dawson

Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer. Transgender. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. There's a long-running joke that, after "coming out," a lesbian, gay guy, bisexual, or trans person should receive a membership card and instruction manual. THIS IS THAT INSTRUCTION MANUAL. You're welcome. Inside you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask: from sex to politics, hooking up to stereotypes, coming out and more. This candid and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBT also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention illustrations.
This Day in June

Gayle E. Pitman

A picture book illustrating a Pride parade. The endmatter serves as a primer on LGBT history and culture and explains the references made in the story.
This is Kind of an Epic Love Story

Kheryn Callender

Budding screenwriter Nate, sixteen, finds his conviction that happy endings do not happen in real life sorely tested when his childhood best friend and crush, Oliver James Hernandez, moves back to town
This Is My Family: A First Look At Same-Sex Parents

Pat Thomas

This new title in Barron's A First Look At series encourages kids of preschool through early school age to understand and overcome problems that might trouble them in social and family relationships. Written by an experienced psychotherapist and counselor on a level that is always understandable to younger children, this book seeks to promote positive interactions among children, parents, and teachers. Thoughtful text is supplemented with child-friendly color illustrations on every page. A two-page How to Use This Book section for parents and teachers appears at the back of each book. This is My Family takes a child's point of view in its discussion of same-sex marriage. Its message is intended both for children of gay or lesbian parents, as well as for the kids and parents of the children's friends and playmates.
This Side of Home

Reneé Watson

Twins Nikki and Maya Younger always agreed on most things, but as they head into their senior year they react differently to the gentrification of their Portland, Oregon neighborhood and the new--white--family that moves in after their best friend and her mother are evicted.
Three Little Words

Sarah N. Harvey

When Sid leaves his foster family on their remote island home in search of the mother he doesn't remember and a brother he's never met, he's ill-prepared for the surprises he finds.
Three Little Words: A Memoir

Ashley Rhodes-Courter

"Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system.