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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Kimchi & Calamari
Rose Kent
Teenaged Joseph Calderaro, who was adopted from Korea by Italian parents, begins to make important self-discoveries about race and family after his social studies teacher assigns an essay on cultural heritage and tracing the past.
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Kinda Like Brothers
Coe Booth
When his mother takes in a twelve-year-old foster boy, Jarrett is forced to share his room and his friends with the new boy.
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King and King and Family
Linda de Haan
King Lee and King Bertie take a honeymoon trip to the jungle and bring home a surprise.
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King of the Screwups
K.L. Going
After getting in trouble yet again, popular high school senior Liam, who never seems to live up to his wealthy father's expectations, is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay "glam-rocker" uncle.
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Kiss Number 8
Colleen AF Venable
Mads is pretty happy with her life. She goes to church with her family, and minor league baseball games with her dad. She goofs off with her best friend Cat, and has thus far managed to avoid getting kissed by Adam, the boy next door. It's everything she hoped high school would be... until all of a sudden, it's not. Her dad is hiding something big--so big it could tear her family apart. And that's just the beginning of her problems: Mads is starting to figure out that she doesn't want to kiss Adam... because the only person she wants to kiss is Cat. Just like that, Mad's tidy little life has gotten epically messy--and epically heartbreaking. And when your heart is broken, it takes more than an awkward, uncomfortable, tooth-clashing, friendship-ending kiss to put things right again. It takes a whole bunch of them.
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Knife Edge (Noughts & Crosses, #2)
Malorie Blackman
Following Callum's death, the people who loved him relate how their lives have been changed, especially in reference to his girlfriend, Sephy, and their mixed-race child.
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KNOCK KNOCK My Dad's Dream for Me
Daniel Beaty
A boy wakes up one morning to find his father gone. At first, he feels lost. But his father has left him a letter filled with advice to guide him through the times he cannot be there.
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Kofi's Mom
Richard W. Dyches
Kofi's Mom is a story about Kofi whose mother is sent to prison. It explores his feelings of loss and confusion. Through friends at school, Kofi begins to talk about his mom and to look forward to her return.
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Kyle's Island
Sally Derby
For as far back as Kyle can remember, he spent summers at Gram's cottage on the lake—fishing all day, and hanging out with the whole family. But this year is different. His father has moved out, his grandmother has died, and his mother is selling the cottage because they can't afford the upkeep. Sally Derby takes readers to a small lake in 1970s Michigan, where thirteen-year-old Kyle comes to understand that loss isn't forever, and that people are more complicated than they seem.
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Ladder to the Moon
Maya Soetoro-Ng
Suhaila's wish to know her deceased grandmother is granted when a golden ladder appears at her window and Grandma Annie invites her on a journey to the moon, where they welcome people who are facing tragedy. Includes facts about the painting and the woman who inspired the story.
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Last Stop on Market Street
Matt de la Peña
CJ begins his weekly bus journey around the city with disappointment and dissatisfaction, wondering why he and his family can't drive a car like his friends. Through energy and encouragement, CJ's nana helps him see the beauty and fun in their routine.
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Laurie Tells
Linda Lowery
When her mother doesn't believe her, eleven-year-old Laurie tells a supportive aunt that she is being sexually abused by her father
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Leah On The Offbeat
Becky Albertalli
Leah Burke - girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier's best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - takes centre stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst. When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat - but real life isn't always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she's the only child of a young, single mum, and her life is decidedly less privileged. And even though her mom knows she's bisexual, she hasn't mustered the courage to tell her friends - not even her openly gay BFF, Simon. So Leah really doesn't know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It's hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting. Especially when she realises she might love one of them more than she ever intended.
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Learning Seventeen
Brooke Carter
New Hope Academy, or, as seventeen-year-old Jane Learning likes to call it, No Hope, is a Baptist reform school where Jane is currently being held captive. Of course, smart, sarcastic Jane has no interest in reforming, failing to see any benefit to pretending to play well with others. But then Hannah shows up, a gorgeous bad girl with fiery hair and an even stormier disposition. She shows Jane how to live a full and fulfilling life even when the world tells you you're wrong, and how to believe in a future outside the "prison" walls. Jane soon learns, though, that Hannah is quietly battling some demons of her own.
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Leonardo's Hand
Warwick Downing
Finally in a foster home with a caring family, Nard, a thirteen-year-old orphan with only one hand, invents a human-powered flying machine with the assistance of the 500-year-old hand of Leonardo da Vinci.
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Let's Talk About It: Divorce
Fred Rogers
Discusses healthy ways to deal with what children might be feeling about divorce.
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Let's Talk About Living with a Grandparent
Susan Kent
Discusses various reasons for living with a grandparent, the benefits of such an arrangement, and how to help out at home.
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Let's Talk About Living with a Single Parent
Elizabeth Weitzman
Examines potential problems and issues that might arise in several different kinds of single-parent homes.
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Letters from the Heart
Annie Bryant
A family history project for school is giving the Beacon Street Girls a lot to think about -- especially Avery. She's got three families: her mother and brothers at home, her father in Colorado, and the birth mother she never really knew. But family is an uncomfortable subject for Maeve. Her parents have just separated, and she doesn't want to talk about it to anyone, not even her best friends in the world, the BSG. Can a bundle of old letters make Maeve see her family in a new light and give her something to share with the Beacon Street Girls?
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Levi's Family (All Kinds of Families)
Elliot Riley
Easy reader introduces a foster child and his foster parents, highlighting their family dynamics and adoption.
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LGBTQ Families: The Ultimate Teen Guide (It Happened to Me)
Eva Apelqvist
Children with LGBTQ parents are affected by all issues LGBTQ. This book is designed for inquisitive teens digging for answers about the many challenges they face. Apelqvist offers encouragement, insights, and resources to help them cope with and embrace the uniqueness of their family life.
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Liars, Inc.
Paula Stokes
Seventeen-year-old Max, his girlfriend Parvati, and best friend Pres form Liars, Inc., expecting that forging notes and lying for their peers will lead to easy cash, but when Pres asks Max to cover for him, it may be a fatal mistake.
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Liberty
Kirby Larson
In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.
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Life Happens Next
Terry Trueman
Shawn's got a new perspective on life. But no one has a clue. That's because they can see only his wheelchair, his limp body, his drool. What they don't see? His brain, with perfect auditory memory. And his heart, which is in love with a girl. And his fierce belief that someday someone will realize there's way more to him than his appearance.
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Like Jake and Me
Mavis Jukes
In this Newbery Honor—winning story from 1984, a new family builds a relationship as a stepfather and stepson celebrate their differences and take heart in their similarities.