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.
Browse by Family Relationship:
Divorce
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Two Naomis
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Audrey Vernick
Other than their first names, Naomi Marie and Naomi Edith are sure they have nothing in common, and they wouldn't mind keeping it that way. Naomi Marie starts clubs at the library and adores being a big sister. Naomi Edith loves quiet Saturdays and hanging with her best friend in her backyard. And while Naomi Marie's father lives a few blocks away, Naomi Edith wonders how she's supposed to get through each day a whole country apart from her mother. When Naomi Marie's mom and Naomi Edith's dad get serious about dating, each girl tries to cling to the life she knows and loves. Then their parents push them into attending a class together, where they might just have to find a way to work with each other--and maybe even join forces to find new ways to define family.
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Waiting for Normal
Leslie Connor
Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.
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Waiting for You
Susane Colasanti
It's sophomore year, and Marisa is ready for a fresh start and, hopefully, her first real boyfriend. But after popular Derek asks her out, things get complicated. Not only do her parents unexpectedly separate, but Marisa has a fight with her best friend, and Derek, the love of her life, delivers a shocking disappointment. The only things keeping Marisa together are the podcasts from the anonymous DJ, who seems to totally understand Marisa. But she doesn't know who he is ... or maybe she does.
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Was It the Chocolate Pudding?: A Story for Little Kids About Divorce
Sandra Levins
A little boy learns that he did not cause his parent's divorce because of the mess he made with chocolate pudding, and describes his new life living with his dad and seeing his mom on weekends.
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We Are the Ants
Shaun David Hutchinson
Abducted by aliens periodically throughout his youth, Henry Denton is informed by his erstwhile captors that they will end the world in 144 days unless he stops them by deciding that humanity is worth saving.
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Weekends with Max and His Dad
Linda Urban
Third-grader Max pursues neighborhood adventures with his dad as they both adjust to recent changes in their family.
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We the Children
Andrew Clements
Sixth-grader Ben Pratt's life is full of changes that he does not like--his parents' separation and the plan to demolish his seaside school to build an amusement park--but when the school janitor gives him a tarnished coin with some old engravings and then dies, Ben is drawn into an effort to keep the school from being destroyed.
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What Can I Do?: A Book for Children of Divorce
Danielle Lowry
A young girl tries everything she can think of to keep her parents from getting a divorce, but with the help of her school counselor, she comes to realize that the divorce is not her fault.
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What Happened to Goodbye
Sarah Dessen
Following her parents' bitter divorce as she and her father move from town to town, seventeen-year-old Mclean reinvents herself at each school she attends until she is no longer sure she knows who she is or where she belongs.
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What Hearts
Bruce Brooks
After his mother divorces his father and remarries, Asa's sharp intellect and capacity for forgiveness help him deal with the instabilities of his new world.
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What is Real
Karen Rivers
Dex Pratt's life has been turned upside down: his parents have divorced, his mother has remarried, and his father attempts suicide and fails. Dex returns to their small town to care for him. However, he isn't prepared for his father's grow-op or his rotting rented house.
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What We Keep is Not Always What Will Stay
Amanda Cockrell
Angie never used to think much about God—until things started getting strange. Like the statue of St. Felix, her secret confidant, suddenly coming off his pedestal and talking to her. And Jesse Francis, sent home from Afghanistan at age nineteen with his leg blown off. Now he's expected to finish high school and fit right back in. Is God even paying attention to this? Against the advice of St. Felix (who knows a thing or two about war), Angie falls for Jesse—who's a lot deeper than most high school guys. But Jesse is battling some major demons. As his behavior starts to become unpredictable, and even dangerous, Angie finds herself losing control of the situation. And she's starting to wonder...can one person ever make things right for someone else?
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When Mom and Dad Separate: Children Can Learn to Cope with Grief from Divorce
Marge Heegaard
Encourages children to sort out their painful feelings about the divorce of their parents through drawings.
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When My Parents Forgot How to Be Friends (Let's Talk About It!)
Jennifer Moore-Mallinos
Explores children's feelings when parents divorce.
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When the Black Girl Sings
Bil Wright
Adopted by white parents and sent to an exclusive Connecticut girls' school where she is the only black student, fourteen-year-old Lahni Schuler feels like an outcast, particularly when her parents separate, but after attending a local church where she hears gospel music for the first time, she finds her voice.
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White Oleander
Janet Fitch
When Ingrid, a brilliant but obsessed poet, is sent to prison for murder, her only child Astrid must find a place for herself as she journeys through a series of foster homes. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.
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Wishworks, Inc.
Stephanie Tolan
When he is granted his wish for a dog from Wishworks, Inc., third-grader Max is disappointed to find that his new pet is nothing like the dog of his imagination.
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Wonder
R. J. Palacio
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
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Yes No Maybe So
Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
Jamie Goldberg, who chokes when speaking to strangers, and Maya Rehrman, who is having the worst Ramadan ever, are paired to knock on doors and ask for votes for the local state senate candidate.
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You and Violence in Your Family
John Giacobello
Explains what family violence is, its various types and how children involved in family violence can get help to learn to cope and adjust.
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You and Your Parents' Divorce
Katherine E. Krohn
Provides information for young people about divorce, discussing some of the emotions and situations kids experience when their parents split up, and includes a list of organizations to call for help.
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Zack's Story: Growing Up with Same-Sex Parents
Keith Elliot Greenberg
An eleven-year-old boy describes life as part of a family made up of himself, his mother, and her lesbian partner.