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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Over You
Amy Reed
A novel about two girls on the run from their problems, their pasts, and themselves. Max and Sadie are escaping to Nebraska, but they'll soon learn they can't escape the truth.
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Owen Has Burgers and Drum: Helping to Understand and Befriend Kids with Asperger's Syndrome
Christine M. Shiels and Frank R. Pane
Cal befriends the new boy at school, Owen, and learns how Owen's behavior is affected by Asperger's syndrome, a part of the autism spectrum characterized by difficulties in social interaction.
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Owen's Family (All Kinds of Families)
Elliot Riley
Meet Owen's family. His mom died when he was young. His dad raises him and his brothers with the help of his grandparents. It is a special kind of family.
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Pablo Finds a Treasure
Andrée Poulin
Pablo and his sister spend every day at "Treasure Mountain," the local dump. There, they rummage through the mounds of garbage looking for items that their mother can sell in order to provide food for the family. Occasionally, they find a "real" treasure like some still-edible food, or a picture book, which Pablo delights in, even though he can't read. The work is exhausting, and sometimes not very lucrative, but the worst thing they have to contend with is Filthy-Face, a brutish bully who steals the finds of all the children. But one day, Pablo discovers a real treasure. Will he be able to keep it from falling into the hands of Filthy-Face?
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Pantomime (Micah Grey, #1)
Laura Lam
Gene's life resembles a debutante's dream. Yet she hides a secret that would see her shunned by the nobility. Gene is both male and female. Then she displays unwanted magical abilities last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age. Matters escalate further when her parents plan a devastating betrayal, so she flees home, dressed as a boy. The city beyond contains glowing glass relics from a lost civilization. They call to her, but she wants freedom not mysteries. So, reinvented as 'Micah Grey', Gene joins the circus. As an aerialist, she discovers the joy of flight, but she's plagued by visions foretelling danger. A storm is howling in from the past, will she heed its roar?
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Papa's Backpack
James Christopher Carroll
Illustrations and rhyming text portray a bear cub who understands that because Papa is a soldier, he sometimes must go, but imagines what it would be like to stay near by riding in Papa's backpack.
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Parachutes
Kelly Yang
They’re called parachutes: teenagers dropped off to live in private homes and study in the United States while their wealthy parents remain in Asia. Claire Wang never thought she’d be one of them, until her parents pluck her from her privileged life in Shanghai and enroll her at a high school in California. Suddenly she finds herself living in a stranger’s house, with no one to tell her what to do for the first time in her life. She soon embraces her newfound freedom, especially when the hottest and most eligible parachute, Jay, asks her out. Dani De La Cruz, Claire’s new host sister, couldn’t be less thrilled that her mom rented out a room to Claire. An academic and debate team star, Dani is determined to earn her way into Yale, even if it means competing with privileged kids who are buying their way to the top. But Dani’s game plan veers unexpectedly off course when her debate coach starts working with her privately. As they steer their own distinct paths, Dani and Claire keep crashing into one another, setting a course that will change their lives forever.
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Pashmina
Nidhi Chanani
Priyanka Das has so many unanswered questions: Why did her mother abandon her home in India years ago? What was it like there? And most importantly, who is her father, and why did her mom leave him behind? But Pri's mom avoids these questions and the topic of India is permanently closed. For Pri, her mother's homeland can only exist in her imagination. That is, until she find a mysterious pashmina tucked away in a forgotten suitcase. When she wraps herself in it, she is transported to a place more vivid and colorful than any guidebook or Bollywood film.
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Peace, Locomotion
Jacqueline Woodson
Through letters to his little sister, who is living in a different foster home, sixth-grader Lonnie, also known as "Locomotion," keeps a record of their lives while they are apart, describing his own foster family, including his foster brother who returns home after losing a leg in the Iraq War.
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Peas and Carrots
Tanita S. Davis
After her mother is arrested, fifteen-year-old Dess is sent to live with the foster family that took in her baby brother several years before, and although she and her new foster sister, Hope, clash immediately, they soon realize they have much in common.
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Pecan Pie Baby
Jacqueline Woodson
When Mama's pregnancy draws attention away from Gia, she worries that the special bond they share will disappear forever once the baby is born
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People Like Us
Dana Mele
When a girl is found dead at her elite boarding school, soccer-star Kay Donovan follows a scavenger hunt which implicates suspects increasingly close to her, unraveling her group of popular friends and perfectly constructed life.
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Peppe the Lamplighter
Elisa Bartone
Peppe becomes a lamplighter to help support his immigrant family in turn-of-the-century New York City, despite his papa's disapproval. But when Peppe's job helps save his little sister, he earns the respect of his entire family.
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Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1)
Simon Elkeles
When wealthy, seemingly perfect Brittany and Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, develop a relationship after Alex discovers that Brittany is not exactly who she seems to be, they must face the disapproval of their schoolmates--and others.
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Perfect Peace
Daniel Black
After Perfect Peace's mother reveals that Perfect was born a boy, made into a girl and now must learn to be a boy again, his life goes out of control and his family is forced to question everything they thought they knew.
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Personal Effects
E. M. Kokie
Matt has been sleepwalking through life while seeking answers about his brother T.J.'s death in Iraq, but after discovering that he may not have known his brother as well as he thought he did, Matt is able to stand up to his father, honor T.J.'s memory, and take charge of his own life.
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Pictures of Hollis Woods
Patricia Reilly Giff
A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.
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Picture Us In The Light
Kelly Loy Gilbert
Daniel, a Chinese-American teen, must grapple with his plans for the future, his feelings for his best friend Harry, and his discovery of a family secret that could shatter everything.
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Pieces of Why
K.L. Going
Tia lives with her mom in a high-risk neighborhood in New Orleans and loves singing gospel in the Rainbow Choir with Keisha, her boisterous and assertive best friend. Tia's dream is to change the world with her voice; and by all accounts, she might be talented enough. But when a shooting happens in her neighborhood and she learns the truth about the crime that sent her father to prison years ago, Tia finds she can't sing anymore.
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Pink Chameleon
Fiona Dunbar
Rorie and Elsie live happily with their slightly eccentric parents, until one day their parents disappear. Rorie and Elsie are put in the guardianship of their sour uncle and aunt in their boarding school. When they can take no more the girls run away in search of their parents and discover that their adventure has only just begun.
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Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat
Francesa Lia Block
After her family loses their cottage in the Los Angeles hills, junior high school outcast Weetzie Bat's father leaves her mother and Weetzie learns how to stand up for herself and to find beauty in even the most difficult situations.
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Playground: The Mostly True Story of a Former Bully
Curtis 50 Cent Jackson and Laura Moser
After beating up Maurice on the playground, Butterball is forced to see the school therapist.
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Playing Without the Ball
Rich Wallace
Feeling abandoned by his parents, who have gone their separate ways and left him behind in a small Pennsylvania town, seventeen-year-old Jay finds hope for the future in a church-sponsored basketball team and a female friend.
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Postcards to Father Abraham
Catherine Lewis
When sixteen-year-old Meghan loses her leg to cancer and her brother to Vietnam, she expresses intense anger in postcards which she writes to her idol, Abraham Lincoln.
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Princess Knight, Part 1
Osamu Tezuka
Set in a medieval fairy-tale backdrop, Princess Knight is the tale of a young princess named Sapphire who must pretend to be a male prince so she can inherit the throne. Women have long been prevented from taking the throne, but Sapphire is not discouraged and instead she fully accepts the role, becoming a dashing hero(ine) that the populous is proud of.