The Diverse Families bookshelf was created and funded through numerous grants. Due to lack of additional grants and the loss of key personnel, the project has come to an end. We have tremendously enjoyed creating this database and hope that it can help bring readers and books together.

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The Days of Summer

Eve Bunting

As summer ends and they get ready to go back to school, two young girls try to deal with the news that the grandparents they love are getting a divorce.
The Evolution of Ethan Poe

Robin Reardon

Ethan Poe, sixteen and gay, struggles for balance while his life conspires to pull him in many different directions. His parents are divorcing; his older brother Kyle is damaging his right hand in the name of purity; his best friend is a Jesus freak who prays for him to be straight; he's desperate to get his driver's license, but he can't seem to get enough supervised driving time. He's just starting to see light in the form of Max Modine, a boy he wants to know much better than he does, when his rural Maine town begins to explode around him. Against his intentions he gets pulled into a pitched and sometimes violent conflict about whether to introduce Intelligent Design into science classrooms. Friendships end, families are torn apart, and the school becomes a battleground. Always seeking elusive balance, Ethan finds his way through a maze of lost friends, new love, and the mysteries of tattoos and power animals, with help from quarters where he never expected to find it. And he gains something better than balance.
The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood

Barb Bentler Ullman

After her parents divorce and she moves to the country with her mother, fourth-grader Willa Jane, anxious and unhappy with the changes in her life, discovers a world of little people called Nutfolk living in the woods around her new home.
The Gallery of Unfinished Girls

Lauren Karcz

Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn't been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year. Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings. Despite Mercedes's creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate. At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn't ever before. But Mercedes can't take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can't live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality.
The Hidden World of Changers #3 The Power Within

H.K. Varian

Darren, Fiona, Mack, and Gabriella are Changers, a magical line of shapeshifters that can transform into mythological creatures, from werewolves and selkies to lightning birds and spirit foxes. They still have a lot to learn when it comes to their powers, but the kids are finally showing some progress fighting as a team, and the First Four think they're ready for a new mission. Young Changers in the area have been mysteriously disappearing, and it's up to the kids to figure out who-or what's behind it. But ever since his parents announced their divorce, Darren has been having a rough time coping-and his lightning abilities are going haywire.
The Kat Sinclair Files #2 Graveyard Slot

Michelle Schusterman

Kat and her friends investigate ghosts in South America, and she finds herself involved in some mysteries that she might not want to unravel.
The Landry News

Andrew Clements

The bad news is that Cara Landry is the new kid at Denton Elementary School. The worse news is that her teacher, Mr. Larson, would rather read the paper and drink coffee than teach his students anything. So Cara decides to give Mr. Larson something else to read: her own newspaper, The Landry News. Before she knows it, the whole fifth-grade class is in on the project. But then the principal finds a copy of The Landry News, with unexpected results. Tomorrow's headline: Will Cara's newspaper cost Mr. Larson his job?
The Last Exit to Normal

Michael B. Harmon

After moving from Spokane, Washington, to a small Montana town with his father and his father's boyfriend, Ben notices that something is not quite right with the little boy next door and determines to do something about it.
The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl and Random Boy

Maria Jaskulka

Forgotten Girl is going through the most difficult time of her life-- the breakup of her parents, and her mom's resulting depression. She meets Random Boy, a hot guy who, like her, feels like an outcast and secretly writes poetry to deal with everything going on in his life. They come from opposite sides of the tracks, yet they find understanding in each other when they lay bare their life stories through the poetry they write and share with each other.
The Meaning of Sisterhood

Beverly Sommers

After their father died, Ariel and Kirsten were finally going to be real sisters, and they had a lot to teach each other.
The Mirror in Mommy's House / The Mirror in Daddy's House

Luis Amavisca, Kim Griffin, and Ben Dawlatly

The child of divorced parents describes the enjoyable things to be found in each parent's house and how both houses share a magical mirror.
The Music of What Happens

Bill Konigsberg

It is summer in Phoenix, and seventeen-year-old Maximo offers to help Jordan, a fellow student in high school, with the food truck that belonged to Jordan's deceased father, and which may be the only thing standing between homelessness for Jordan and his mom; the boys are strongly attracted to each other, but as their romance develops it is threatened by the secrets they are hiding--and by the racism and homophobia of those around them.
The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to His Death and Lands in California

Mary Hershey

Alastair, a thirteen-year-old who calls himself "Stump" because of his amputated leg, must face a summer at his wealthy but estranged father's beach house in Los Angeles, where he meets his stepmother, falls in love with a teenaged soap opera star, and decides to train for a race with a former Olympic swim coach.
The Popularity Papers: Research for the Social Improvement and General Betterment of Lydia Goldblatt & Julie Graham-Chang

Amy Ignatow

Two best friends embark on a project to study the behavior and taste of the popular girls at their elementary school so that by the time they get to middle school they too will be in the right crowd. Novel appears in the form of a scrapbook.
The Pros of Cons

Allison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, and Michelle Schusterman

Phoebe Byrd, Vanessa Montoya-O'Callaghan, and Callie Buchannan are three teenagers with very different interests and somewhat different problems, but today they are all in Orlando to attend different conventions/competitions--and when a crazy mix-up in the hotel lobby brings the three girls together, they form an unlikely friendship against the chaotic background of the Orlando convention scene.
The Rules of Survival

Nancy Werlin

Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.
The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Deb Caletti

Seventeen-year-old Quinn has heard all her life about how untrustworthy men are, so when she discovers that her charismatic but selfish father, with whom she has recently begun to have a tentative relationship, has stolen from the many women in his life, she decides she must avenge this wrong.
The Summer of Riley

Eve Bunting

Eleven-year-old William never needed a friend more than now. After his parents' separation, his father's new engagement, and his grandfather's dying without any warning -- adopting big, beautiful Riley is the first thing in a long time that has made him feel better. That is, until Riley innocently chases a horse. Local law states that any animal that chases livestock must be put to sleep. Suddenly William stands to lose another thing close to him. Together with his "totally unsurpassed" friend Grace, William begins a campaign to reverse the county commissioners' decision. But with a community divided on the issue, and the bully Ellis Porter trying to stop them at every turn, will they be able to save Riley's life? Celebrated author Eve Bunting shows William's determined struggle to fight for what he believes in. The Summer of Riley is an inspiring novel about learning to accept life's changes, the healing power of friendship, and the unending desire to protect those we love.
The Thunder in His Head

Gene Gant

Kyle, a gay sixteen-year-old has troubles. His parents are divorcing, he's attracted to his mother's new boyfriend and he's just met Dwight whose life is even more complicated than his.
The Trouble with Cats

Martha Freeman

After a difficult first week of third grade, Holly begins to adjust to her new school and living in her new stepfather's tiny apartment with his four cats.
The Truly Brave Princesses

Dolores Brown

Princess Nin is a firefighter, Princess Gilda is a supermarket cashier, Princess Agnes is retired, and Princess Liang is in a wheel chair. This gallery of princesses gives visibility to lot of women who do not fit with the traditional conception of a princess. Maybe it’s time to realize that each and every one of us could be a princess.
The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Nick Burd

It's Dade's last summer at home, and things are pretty hopeless. He has a crappy job, a "boyfriend" who treats him like dirt, and his parents' marriage is falling apart. So when he meets and falls in love with the mysterious Alex Kincaid, Dade feels like he's finally experiencing true happiness. But when a tragedy shatters the final days of summer, he realizes he must face his future and learn how to move forward from his past.
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
Tilt

Ellen Hopkins

Three teens, connected by their parents' bad choices, tell in their own voices of their lives and loves as Shane finds his first boyfriend, Mikayla discovers that love can be pushed too far, and Harley loses herself in her quest for new experiences.
Two Homes

Claire Masurel

A young boy named Alex enjoys the homes of both of his parents who live apart but love Alex very much.