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:
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Gracefully Grayson
Ami Polonsky
Grayson, a transgender twelve-year-old, learns to accept her true identity and share it with the world.
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Gracias, the Thanksgiving Turkey
Joy Cowley
Trouble ensues when Papa gets Miguel a turkey to fatten up for Thanksgiving and Miguel develops an attachment to it.
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Grand
Marla Stewart Konrad
This picture book shows the many special and everyday moments that occur between grandparents and grandchildren.
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Grandfather Counts
Andrea Cheng and Ange Zhang
When her maternal grandfather comes from China, Helen, who is biracial, develops a special bond with him despite their age and language differences.
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Grandmama's Joy
Eloise Greenfield
When Rhondy's grandmother is sad after learning that they must find another place to live, Rhondy reminds her that they will still have what is most important--each other.
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Grandmother's Visit
Betty Quan
Grandmother lives with Grace's family. She tells her stories about growing up in China and together they savor the flavors of her childhood. Grandmother says goodbye when she drops Grace off at school every morning and hello when she picks her up at the end of the day. Then, Grandmother stops walking Grace to and from school, and the door to her room stays closed. One day, Grandmother's room is empty. And one day, Grandmother is buried. After the funeral, Grace's mom turns on all the outside lights so that Grandmother's spirit can find its way home for one final goodbye.
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Grandparents Raising Kids
Rae Simons
In 2005, 6 million children were being raised by their grandparents. Sometimes, their grandchildren's parents had died, sometimes they were in prison, and sometimes they just couldn't cope with raising children. When grandparents take in their grandchildren to raise, they have some difficulties most families don't have. They're older, for one thing, and they also have to deal with their own children and that relationship. But they have the wisdom and experience they've gained from raising one set of children already, and this can help. The families in this book have had both good and bad experiences, but they have learned a great deal through them.
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Grasshopper Jungle
Andrew Smith
Austin Szerba narrates the end of humanity as he and his best friend Robby accidentally unleash an army of giant, unstoppable bugs and uncover the secrets of a decades-old experiment gone terribly wrong.
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Grasslands
Debra Seely
In the 1880s, thirteen-year-old Thomas moves west from the aristocratic Virginia home of his grandparents to a poor Kansas farm to live with a father he barely remembers and his new stepfamily.
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Great Joy
Kate DiCamillo
Just before Christmas, when Frances sees a sad-eyed organ grinder and his monkey performing near her apartment, she cannot stop thinking about them, wondering where they go at night, and wishing she could do something to help.
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GreenBean: True Blue Family
Elizabeth Blake
Greenbean is worried that she does not belong in her family because she is different, but discovers that belonging is about something different.
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Greenglass House
Kate Milford
It's wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler's inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers' adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo's home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook's daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House -- and themselves.
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Guy Time
Sarah Weeks
A humorous account of thirteen-year-old Guy's dealing with the separation, and possible divorce, of his eccentric parents and with his own new-found interest in girls.
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Half a Heart
Rosellen Brown
When her biracial daughter appears suddenly after eighteen years searching for the mother who left her, former civil rights activist Miriam Vener begins a painful confrontation with her past.
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Half a Man
Michael Morpurgo
From a young age, Michael was both fascinated by and afraid of his grandfather. Grandpa’s ship was torpedoed during the Second World War, leaving him with terrible burns. Every time he came to stay, Michael was warned by his mother that he must not stare, he must not make too much noise, he must not ask Grandpa any questions about his past. As he grows older, Michael stays with his grandfather during the summer holidays and learns the story behind Grandpa’s injuries, finally getting to know the real man behind the solemn figure from his childhood. Michael can see beyond the burns, and this gives him the power to begin healing scars that have divided his family for so long.
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Half a World Away
Cynthia Kadohata
Twelve-year-old Jaden, an emotionally damaged adopted boy fascinated by electricity, feels a connection to a small, weak toddler with special needs in Kazakhstan, where Jaden's family is trying to adopt a "normal" baby.
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Hancock Park
Isabel Kaplan
While attending an exclusive prep school in Los Angeles, a smart but anxiety-ridden high school junior tries to deal with boys, popularity, and her parents' divorce.
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Happy Adoption Day!
John McCutcheon
Parents celebrate the day on which they adopted their child and continue to reassure the new addition to their family that they are wanted, loved, and very special.
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Happy Birthday, Bertie!
Marcus Pfister
It's Bertie's birthday and he's going to have a birthday party. There's a birthday cake to be made, and decorations to be hung, and games to be played, and best of all, presents to be opened. But where is Daddy's present? Daddy has hidden it so well, he cannot find it himself.
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Happyface
Stephen Emond
After going through traumatic times, a troubled, socially awkward teenager moves to a new school where he tries to reinvent himself.
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Harbor Me
Jacquline Woodson
It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat--by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them--everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.
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Hard Love
Ellen Wittlinger
After starting to publish a zine in which he writes his secret feelings about his lonely life and his parents' divorce, sixteen-year-old John meets an unusual girl and begins to develop a healthier personality.
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Hatchet
Gary Paulsen
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet given to him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.
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Heart of Iron
Ashley Poston
Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09 -- one of the last remaining illegal Metals -- has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. Ana's desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn't care what he'll sacrifice to keep them. When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them -- and the coordinates -- and not everyone wants them captured alive. What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives -- and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana's past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?
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Heart of Mine: A Story of Adoption
Dan Hojer and Lotta Hojer
Offers young readers a story about adoption as two parents explain how their daughter, Tu Thi, came into their lives from a country so very far away.