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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All You Can Ever Know
Nicole Chung
Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up―facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from―she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth.
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Almost Perfect
Brian Katcher
With his mother working long hours and in pain from a romantic break-up, eighteen-year-old Logan feels alone and unloved until a zany new student arrives at his small-town Missouri high school, keeping a big secret.
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Along for the ride : a novel
Sarah Dessen
It's been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents' divorce - or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live. A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town.
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A Long Way Home
Saroo Brierley
An account of the author's inspirational effort to find his India birthplace describes how he was accidentally separated from his family in the mid-1980s, his survival on the streets of Calcutta, his adoption by an Australian family, and his headline-making Google Earth search.
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Also Known as Harper
Ann Haywood Leal
Writing poetry helps fifth-grader Harper Lee Morgan cope with her father's absence, being evicted, and having to skip school to care for her brother while their mother works, and things look even brighter after she befriends a mute girl and a kindly disabled woman.
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Amber Brown Goes Fourth
Paula Danziger
Entering fourth grade, Amber faces some changes in her life as her best friend moves away and her parents divorce.
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Amber Brown Horses Around
Paula Danziger, Bruce Coville, and Elizabeth Levy
Amber's excited to be spending the summer after fourth grade with her friends at Camp Cushetunk, but things start getting complicated when she learns that her worst enemy, Hannah Burton, is one of her bunkmates.
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Amber Brown is Feeling Blue
Paula Danziger
Nine-year-old Amber Brown faces further complications because of her parents' divorce when her father plans to move back from Paris and she must decide which parent she will be with on Thanksgiving.
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Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit
Paula Danziger
Amber Brown is in deep trouble. Lately, no matter what she does, it isn't enough. She straightens up her room, sort of. She does her homework, well most of it. And she agrees to meet Max, her mother's new boyfriend, but she doesn't agree to like him. Now her mother is angry, her teacher wants all of her homework, and Max keeps trying to make her laugh. What's Amber to do? All she wants is a little extra credit. She really tries ... But how will she succeed?
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Amber was Brave, Essie was Smart
Vera B. Williams
A series of poems tells how two sisters help each other deal with life while their mother is working and their father has been sent to jail.
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Amelia Westlake
Erin Gough
Harriet Price has the perfect life: she's a prefect at Rosemead Grammar, she lives in a mansion, and her gorgeous girlfriend is a future prime minister. So when she decides to risk it all by helping bad-girl Will Everhart expose the school's many ongoing issues, Harriet tells herself it's because she too is seeking justice. And definitely not because she finds Will oddly fascinating. Will Everhart can't stand posh people like Harriet, but even she has to admit Harriet's ideas are good - and they'll keep Will from being expelled. That's why she teams up with Harriet to create Amelia Westlake, a fake student who can take the credit for a series of provocative pranks at their school. But the further Will and Harriet's hoax goes, the harder it is for the girls to remember they're sworn enemies - and to keep Amelia Westlake's true identity hidden. As tensions burn throughout the school, how far will they go to keep Amelia Westlake - and their feelings for each other - a secret?
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American Ace
Marilyn Nelson
Sixteen-year-old Connor tries to help his severely depressed father, who learned upon his mother's death that Nonno was not his biological father, by doing research that reveals Dad's father was probably a Tuskegee Airman.
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A Mom for Umande
Maria Faulconer
Because his own mother is too young to take care of him, Umande, a newborn gorilla, is fed and cuddled by human zookeepers until a surrogate mother is found.
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A Most Unusual Day
Sydra Mallery
Something rather extraordinary is happening in Caroline’s life today...her family is adopting a new baby sister! A warm and loving story about school, family, siblings, and adoption, for anyone eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new sibling.
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A Name on the Quilt
Jeannine Atkins
A family reminisces while gathered together to make a panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of a beloved uncle.
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An American Face
Jan M. Czech and Frances Clancy
Adopted from Korea by American parents, Jessie excitedly waits for the day he will get his American citizenship and, he thinks, an American face.
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And She Was
Jessica Verdi
When Dara finds her birth certificate, she is puzzled to find two strange names on it, but when her mother, Mellie, reveals that she is transgender and transitioned when Dara's biological mother died soon after Dara's birth, Dara is stunned and angry--and she sets off with her friend Sam, in search of the grandparents she never knew existed (and who may be able to fund her tennis career), and the family secrets she can only guess at.
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And Then There Were Four
Nancy Werlin
When five high school students are brought together under mysterious circumstances, they begin to piece together a theory that their parents are working together to kill them all.
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An Ellis Island Christmas
Maxinne Rhea Leighton
Papa has already left Poland, and Krysia longs to see him again. "First we must cross the ocean to get to Ellis Island in America," says Mama. "That's where Papa is waiting for us." Saying goodbye to her home is hard, and the ocean voyage is long and stormy, but finally, on Christmas Eve, Krysia sees the Statue of Liberty! Dennis Nolan's richly rendered illustrations powerfully evoke the uncertainty, wonder, and hope of this young immigrant's experience. An Ellis Island Christmas is a holiday story to treasure, year after year.
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An Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir
Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.
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An Enchantment of Ravens
Margaret Rogerson
Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel's paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron--Rook, the autumn prince--she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes--a weakness that could cost him his life. Furious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime.
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A New Barker in the House
Tomie DePaola
Twins Moffie and Morgie are excited when they hear that their family is adopting a three-year-old Hispanic boy.
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An Eye for an Eye (Noughts & Crosses, #1.5)
Malorie Blackman
This is a novella in the Noughts & Crosses series, written especially for World Book Day. In a world where the two classes are divided by colour and never treated as equals; Sephy, a Cross and daughter of a top politician, is six months pregnant. The child's father, Callum, is a Nought, but worse, he is dead and Callum's brother is out for revenge. Can two wrongs make a right?
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Angel's Grace
Tracey Baptiste
While visiting her grandmother in Trinidad, thirteen-year-old Grace sees a photograph of a stranger with a birthmark identical to hers, and begins to wonder if the reason she feels different from the rest of her family is that he is her real father.
