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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She Loves You, She Loves You Not...
Julie Anne Peters
When seventeen-year-old Alyssa is disowned by her father for being a lesbian, she is sent off to a small town in Colorado to live with the mother she has never known, where she is forced to come to terms with herself and her family.
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Shine
Lauren Myracle
When her best gay friend falls victim to a vicious hate crime, sixteen-year-old Cat sets out to discover who in her small town did it.
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Ship of Dolls
Shirley Parenteau
In 1927 Japan, after disobeying her parents, eleven-year-old Chiyo is sent to an exclusive boarding school where she feels lonely and homesick until the Friendship Doll exchange with America piques her interest, but a bully stands in her way.
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Shooting the Moon
Frances O'Roark Dowell
After her brother TJ joins the army and is sent to Vietnam, 12-year-old Jamie Dexter is proud that TJ is following in their father's footsteps. Instead of letters, TJ sends Jamie undeveloped rolls of film, and what she sees when she develops them reveals a whole new side of the war.
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Shy Mama's Halloween
Anne Broyles
For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, newly arrived to this country, Halloween seems a wonderfully strange and exciting holiday. They enlist Mrs. Rumanski and her midnight-blue Singer sewing machine in the apartment downstairs to help with their costumes, and Papa agrees to take them out trick-or-treating. But Papa comes home sick that evening, and it looks as though the children will be watching the trick or treating from the upstairs window. Mama, who is frightened by so much in this new country, especially the thought of ghosts and goblins on the streets, surprises them all when she rises to the occasion and takes her young princess, witch, devil, and clown down the stairs and out into the night. As they go from house to house, they find that everyone along the street is friendly. No one seems to care that their "Thank yous" are said with an accent, or that Mama, in her babushka, can speak only a few words of English. For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, it is their first sense of belonging in their new country, of savoring the fun and magic of Halloween and the generosity of strangers. For Mama, it is a much greater step out into a new world, led by her children.
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Sibling Split: Family Fix-It Plan
M. G. Higgins
Siblings Arnie and Annabelle are horrified by the news that their parents are separating, and even more devastated at the idea that they are being split up, so they decide to create a video montage of their favorite family memories in the hope that it will convince their parents to stay together.
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Sibling Split: Party of Nine
M. G. Higgins
It is the first Thanksgiving since their parents split up, and twelve-year-old Arnie has come to the farm to spend the weekend with eleven-year-old Annabelle and their father at the farm--and when it starts to looks like it will just be the three of them, Arnie and Annabelle decide to invite several of their neighbors over for the feast.
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Sibling Split: The Impossible Wish
M. G. Higgins
Months after their parents divorce, Annabelle who lives with their father, and Arnie, who lives with their mother, still nurture the hope that somehow their parents will get back together, and that once more they will be a family.
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Sibling Split: Trouble in the City
M. G. Higgins
Now that summer is over and school is beginning separated siblings Annabelle and Arnie are struggling to cope with the reality of life apart--but when Annabelle comes to her mother and brother's apartment in the city a lot of repressed emotion suddenly overflows.
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Signal
Cynthia C. DeFelice
After moving with his emotionally distant father to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, twelve-year-old Owen faces a lonely summer until he meets an abused girl who may be a space alien.
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Silence
Deborah A. Lytton
After an accident robs Stella of her hearing and her dream of going to Broadway, she meets Hayden, a boy who stutters, and comes to learn what it truly means to connect and communicate in a world filled with silence.
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Silent Movie
Avi .
In the early years of the twentieth century, a Swedish family encounters separation and other hardships upon immigrating to New York City until the son is cast in a silent movie, in a picture book that evokes an actual silent movie.
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Singing Tree and Laughing Water
Sylvia Hardwick
Relates the adventures of two Native American sisters after they go to live with a foster mother.
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Single-Parent Families
Sarah L. Schuette
Simple text and photographs present single-parent families, including how family members interact with one another.
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Sister Mischief
Laura Goode
Esme Rockett, also known as MC Ferocious, rocks her suburban Minnesota Christian high school with more than the hip-hop music she makes with best friends Marcy (DJ SheStorm) and Tess (The ConTessa) when she develops feelings for her co-MC, Rowie (MC Rohini).
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Sisters
Judith Caseley
Kika has just been adopted -- and she's worried. There's so much that's new to her: a different language, new friends to make, and something she's never had before -- a family. Melissa has a new sister -- and she's excited. There's so much to share with Kika: trips to the playground, afternoons at the library, and birthday parties. Through each new experience, Kika and Melissa discover that sisterhood can be fun, challenging, and sometimes unpredictable, but always rewarding. Best of all, a sister is a friend for life.
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Sister's Choice
Emilie Richards
Childless Kendra and husband Isaac accept an offer from Kendra's younger sister- single mom Jamie- to conceive and carry a child for them. But when a medical crisis threatens Jamie's health she learns that the most difficult choice in her life is yet to come.
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Sister Split
Sally Warner
When her parents separate, eleven-year-old Ivy must cope not only with their impending divorce, but also with the unexpected impact it has on her relationship with her older sister.
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SkateFate
Juan Felipe Herrera
Lucky Z, a Chicano foster child, loved living on the edge until a drag racing accident left him in a wheelchair, but as he struggles to find his place in a new high school, he begins writing poetry everywhere about anything, and in finding his voice he also discovers the beauty around him.
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Skin
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
You don't have to be thin to feel small. Donnie's life is unraveling. His parents' marriage is falling apart, and his sister is slowly slipping away in the grip of her illness. To top it all off, he accidentally starts a rumor at school that hurts someone he cares about and leaves him an outcast. So Donnie does the only thing he knows how to do: He tries to fix things, to make everything the way it was before. Before his parents stopped loving each other, before his sister disappeared, before he was alone. But some things are beyond repair, and it will take all Donnie's strength to stop looking back and start moving forward again.
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Sky
Pamela Paige Porter
Eleven-year-old Georgia lives with her grandparents, Paw Paw and Gramma, on the edge of the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. Spring comes, and it rains and rains until one afternoon the creek behind their house suddenly becomes a wall of water, washing away everything the family owns: their house, their barn, and even Daisy, the only stuffed animal Georgia has ever had. Through sheer determination, Georgia and her grandparents gradually rebuild their lives, but it's not until Georgia finds Sky, a foal that somehow survived the flood, that the family begins to heal and find meaning again despite their losses. Based on the true story of Georgia Salois and written in the haunting voice of a young child, Sky vividly describes the historic flood of 1964 and its effect on Georgia and her people. Their courage in overcoming disaster, poverty, and discrimination provides young readers with a compelling portrayal of endurance.
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Skyscraping
Cordelia Jensen
In 1993 in New York City, high school senior Mira uncovers many secrets, including that her father has a male lover.
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Slant
Laura E. Williams
Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called "slant" and "gook," and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish--and a long-kept secret about her mother's death is revealed--Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.
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Sliding into Home
Nina Vincent
Thirteen-year-old Flip Simpson's ideal life just began to crumble. His adoptive parents are splitting up. He's moving from the only home he's ever known. He has to leave before his baseball team finishes the playoffs. And his little sister is his only companion. Flip folds under the weight of so much loss until he meets Ricki, an indigenous classmate who loves baseball and gives Flip a sense of pride in his Mayan roots, and Zorba, an eccentric houseboat dweller who is a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Willy Wonka. Zorba possesses an uncanny ability to sense Flip's fears and doubts and inspires the courage Flip needs to overcome both. Just as life begins to look up, Flip is faced with the challenge of a racist bully. Steve picks at the wounds Flip has tried so hard to mend and brings to the surface questions Flip didn't know he had about race, culture and belonging. Will Flip rise to the challenge and face Steve, or retreat into himself once again?
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Soames on the Range
Nancy Belgue
After he gets in trouble at school for fighting, fifteen-year-old San Francisco "Cisco" Soames is sent by his hippy parents to live with his renegade uncle on a dude ranch.