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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My Name is Blessing
Eric Walters
Based on the life of a real boy, this warm-hearted, beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Baraka, a young Kenyan boy with a physical disability. Baraka and eight cousins live with their grandmother. She gives them boundless love, but there is never enough money or food, and life is hard--love doesn't feed hungry stomachs or clothe growing bodies, or school keen minds. Baraka is too young, and, with his disability, needs too much, and she is too old. A difficult choice must be made, and grandmother and grandchild set off on a journey to see if there is a place at the orphanage for Baraka. The story begins by looking at Baraka's physical disability as a misfortune, but ends by looking beyond the disability, to his great heart and spirit, and the blessings he brings.
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My Name Is Sangoel
Karen Williams and Khadra Mohammed
Sangoel is a refugee. Leaving behind his homeland of Sudan, where his father died in the war, he has little to call his own other than his name, a Dinka name handed down proudly from his father and grandfather before him.
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My New Family: A First Look at Adoption
Pat Thomas
Explains adoption, the feelings of insecurity that such a situation may cause, and the nature of biological parents, adoptive parents, and foster parents.
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My Parents are Getting Divorced: How to Keep It Together When Your Mom and Dad are Splitting Up
Florence Cadier and Melissa Day
Explains the feelings and questions shared by young adults whose parents are getting divorced, the changes that could occur, and how to deal with them. Includes hotline numbers.
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My Sister Gracie
Gillian Johnson
Fabio is an only dog who longs for a brother to play with him. His owners agree, but the dog they bring home is not the frisky brother he envisioned. It is fat old Gracie, fresh from the pound. She's tired, she's shy, and worst of all, she's a girl. After boasting about a brother, how will Fabio face his friends?
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Mysterious Traveler
Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham
Desert guide Issa finds the baby girl Mariama after a sandstorm, and raises her as his own daughter--until a young man and his protectors come seeking a guide for their dangerous journey through the Bitter Mountains.
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My Tiki Girl
Jennifer McMahon
Fifteen-year-old Maggie, still grieving the loss of her mother in an accident that also gave her a limp, has turned her back on old friends but connects with a new student, Dahlia, who makes her part of her quirky family and plans their future together as roving musicians and lovers.
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My Time as Caz Hazard
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Caz thinks she has a pretty good reason when she punches her boyfriend in the face, but she gets expelled anyway. Moving to a new school, she is told she is dyslexic and sent to special education classes. Caz tries to fit in and get by while suffering the taunts and abuse that others throw at the students in her class. Her friendship with Amanda leads her into new territory--shoplifting and skipping school. Coupled with her parents' impending separation, her life is spiraling out of control.
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Nala's Magical Mitsiaq: A Story of Inuit Adoption
Jennifer Noah
When a blizzard prevents sisters Nala and Qiatsuk from going sledding, they end up staying home and hearing the story of Nala's adoption and learning about Inuit custom adoption instead.
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Naming Liberty
Jane Yolen
In parallel stories, a Ukrainian Jewish family prepares to immigrate to the United States in the late 1800s, and Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designs, raises funds for, and builds the Statue of Liberty in honor of the United States' centennial.
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Nellie's Promise (American Girls)
Valerie Tripp
Nellie O'Malley finally has a home again. She and her little sisters, Bridget and Jenny, are happily settling in with Samantha's family in New York City.
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Newsgirl
Liza Ketchum
In the spring of 1851, San Francisco is booming. 12-year-old Amelia Forrester has just arrived with her family and they are eager to make a new life in Phoenix City. But the mostly male town is not that hospitable to females and Amelia decides she will earn more money as a boy. Cutting her hair and donning a cap, she joins a gang of newsboys, selling Eastern newspapers for a fortune.
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New Shoes
Susan Lynn Meyer
Set in the South during the time of segregation, this lushly illustrated picture book brings the civil rights era to life for contemporary readers as two young girls find an inventive way to foil Jim Crow laws.When her brother's hand-me-down shoes don't fit, it is time for Ella Mae to get new ones. She is ecstatic, but when she and her mother arrive at Mr. Johnson's shoe store, her happiness quickly turns to dejection. Ella Mae is unable to try on the shoes because of her skin color. Determined to fight back, Ella Mae and her friend Charlotte work tirelessly to collect and restore old shoes, wiping, washing, and polishing them to perfection. The girls then have their very own shoe sale, giving the other African American members of their community a place to buy shoes where they can be treated fairly and "try on all the shoes they want."
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Nico and Tucker
Rachel Gold
The decision can't be put off any longer. A medical crisis turns Nico's body into a battleground, crushing Nico under conflicting family pressures. Having lived genderqueer for years, Nico is used to getting strong reactions (and uninvited opinions!) from everyone, but it is Tucker's reaction that hurts the most. Jess Tucker didn't mean to hurt Nico, but she panicked. And after the worst year of her life, she's hanging on by a thread. Forget recovery time and therapy, she needs to put the past behind her and be normal again. But when her relationship with Nico becomes more than she can handle, she cuts and runs.
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Night Hoops
Carl Deuker
While trying to prove that he is good enough to be on his high school's varsity basketball team, Nick must also deal with his parents' divorce and the erratic behavior of a troubled classmate who lives across the street.
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Night Music
Jenn Marie Thorne
Ruby and Oscar are caught up in a romance despite very different backgrounds and her having given up on music, while he is the protégé of her father, a renowned composer.
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Night on Fire
Ronald Kidd
When thirteen-year-old Billie Sims learns that the Freedom Riders, a civil rights group protesting segregation on buses in the summer of 1961, will be traveling through Anniston, Alabama, she thinks change could be coming to her stubborn town. But what starts as angry grumbles soon turns to brutality, and Billie is forced to reconsider her own views.
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Nine Candles
Maria Testa
After visiting his mother in prison on his seventh birthday, Raymond wishes it were his ninth birthday when Mama has promised to be home with his dad and him.
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Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story
Nora Raleigh Baskin
The morning of September 11, 2001, was warm, clear and perfect. Until 8:46 a.m when a plane struck the World Trade Center. But that has not happened yet.`
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Nini
Francois Thisdale
Long before Nini was born, she was in a safe place where a familiar voice promised her a loving home. But once she was born, that soft voice was replaced by the words of care givers in an orphanage. Though they were kind, Nini missed the soft voice and the promises it made. Then, one day, a man and a woman on the other side of the world learned that their dreams were about to come true. They would finally have a baby to love. When they all met, Nini once again heard a soft voice, as reassuring and as loving as the first, and trusted that the promises had come true. But her first memory was never lost--it remained an echo for her to share with her parents in her new home.
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Ninth Ward
Jewell Parker Rhodes
In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.
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Noah Chases the Wind
Michelle Worthington
Noah is different. He sees, hears, feels, and thinks in ways that other people don't always understand, and he asks a lot of questions along the way. Noah loves science, especially the weather. His books usually provide him with the answers he needs, until one day, there's one question they don't answer—and that is where Noah's windy adventure begins.
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No and Me
Delphine de Vigan
Parisian teenager Lou has an IQ of 160, OCD tendencies, and a mother who has suffered from depression for years. But Lou is about to change her life-and that of her parents-all because of a school project about homeless teens. While doing research, Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou bravely asks her parents if No can live with them, and is astonished when they agree. No's presence forces Lou's family to come to terms with a secret tragedy. But can this shaky, newfound family continue to live together when No's own past comes back to haunt her?
