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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The Missing Manatee
Cynthia DeFelice
All Skeet Waters wants is to catch a big, beautiful tarpon on his fly rod - and to keep everything else in his life in Florida the way it's always been. But on his spring break from school, Skeet overhears his mother telling his father to move out permanently. Then, while riding in his boat to escape his parents' troubles, he discovers a manatee that's been shot in the head. Skeet puts aside his search for the manatee and its killer when Dirty Dan the Tarpon Man offers to take him out to catch his first tarpon on a fly. Because of Dan, Skeet begins to unravel the mysteries surrounding the manatee's apparent murder and his parents' dissolving marriage. Skeet discovers that life is a lot like tarpon fishing, in which you can't look just at the surface of the water - you have to look through it, at what lies beneath.
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The Mulberry Bird: An Adoption Story
Anne Braff Brodzinsky
Although she loves her baby very much, a young mother bird gives him up for adoption because she is unable to give him the home which he needs.
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The Music of What Happens
Bill Konigsberg
It is summer in Phoenix, and seventeen-year-old Maximo offers to help Jordan, a fellow student in high school, with the food truck that belonged to Jordan's deceased father, and which may be the only thing standing between homelessness for Jordan and his mom; the boys are strongly attracted to each other, but as their romance develops it is threatened by the secrets they are hiding--and by the racism and homophobia of those around them.
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The Naming of Tishkin Silk
Glenda Millard
The first book in the Kingdom of Silk series. Griffin has a secret in his heart that nobody else knows - until he meets Layla., a princess with a daisy-chain crown.
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The Nerdiest, Wimpiest, Dorkiest I Funny Ever (I Funny #6)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Comedian Jamie Grimm can't help feeling like he's reached the top--he has his own smash hit TV show and he's won a national funny-kid competition. But now he's taking his fame and fortune to international levels by competing in the upcoming world kid comic contest! Will Jamie prove that he's the funniest kid on earth--or does he stand (or sit!) to lose his crown?
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The New Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Mama Bear, Mommy Bear, and Baby Bear
Beth McMurray
The new Goldilocks and the Three Bears helps celebrate the diversity of loving families. This version follows Mama Bear, Mommy Bear, and Baby Bear as they encounter the timeless character of Goldilocks.
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The Night Dad Went to Jail: What to Expect When Someone You Love Goes to Jail
Melissa Higgins
When someone you love goes to jail, you might feel lost, scared, and even mad. What do you do? No matter who your loved one is, this story can help you through the tough times.
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The Night Diary
Veera Hiranandani
It's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders. Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn't know where she belongs, or what her country is anymore. When Papa decides it's too dangerous to stay in what is now Pakistan, Nisha and her family become refugees and embark first by train but later on foot to reach her new home. The journey is long, difficult, and dangerous, and after losing her mother as a baby, Nisha can't imagine losing her homeland, too. But even if her country has been ripped apart, Nisha still believes in the possibility of putting herself back together.
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The Notations of Cooper Cameron
Jane O'Reilly
At the family cabin by the lake where his grandfather died two years ago, eleven-year-old Cooper Cameron spends the summer trying to rid himself of the rituals that allow him to cope with his grief and fear.
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The Not-So-Only Child
Heather Jopling
Larissa is an only child, but she is not alone! See how big this only child's family is! This book shows that an only child can still have a very full family with different lifestyles and ethnicities represented in her world.
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The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to His Death and Lands in California
Mary Hershey
Alastair, a thirteen-year-old who calls himself "Stump" because of his amputated leg, must face a summer at his wealthy but estranged father's beach house in Los Angeles, where he meets his stepmother, falls in love with a teenaged soap opera star, and decides to train for a race with a former Olympic swim coach.
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The Only Boy in Ballet Class
Denise Gruska
Tucker Dohr loves ballet but is constantly teased by football players his age for being a sissy. However, they see him in a whole new light when circumstances place him in a position to help them win the football championship.
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The Other F-Word
Natasha Friend
Milo has two great moms, but he's never known what it's like to have a dad. When Milo's doctor suggests asking his biological father to undergo genetic testing to shed some light on Milo's extreme allergies, he realizes this is a golden opportunity to find the man he's always wondered about. Hollis's mom Leigh hasn't been the same since her other mom, Pam, passed away seven years ago. But suddenly, Leigh seems happy—giddy, even—by the thought of reconnecting with Hollis's half-brother Milo. Hollis and Milo were conceived using the same sperm donor. They met once, years ago, before Pam died.
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The Other Side of Dark
Sarah Smith
Since losing both of her parents, fifteen-year-old Katie can see and talk to ghosts, which makes her a loner until fellow student Law sees her drawing of a historic house and together they seek a treasure rumored to be hidden there by illegal slave-traders.
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The Pearl Thief
Elizabeth Wein
When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she'd imagined won't be exactly like she anticipated. And once she returns to her grandfather's estate, a bit banged up but alive, she begins to realize that her injury might not have been an accident. One of her family's employees is missing, and he disappeared on the very same day she landed in the hospital. Desperate to figure out what happened, she befriends Euan McEwen, the Scottish Traveller boy who found her when she was injured, and his standoffish sister, Ellen. As Julie grows closer to this family, she experiences some of the prejudices they've grown used to firsthand, a stark contrast to her own upbringing, and finds herself exploring thrilling new experiences that have nothing to do with a missing-person investigation. Her memory of that day returns to her in pieces, and when a body is discovered, her new friends are caught in the crosshairs of long-held biases about Travellers. Julie must get to the bottom of the mystery in order to keep them from being framed for the crime.
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The Pea That was Me: An Egg Donation Story
Kimberly Kluger-Bell
Explains egg donation through pictures and simple words.
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
Charlie struggles to cope with complex world of high school as he deals with the confusions of sex and love, the temptations of drugs, and the pain of losing a close friend and a favorite aunt.
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The Poet X
Elizabeth Acevedo
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers--especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. Mami is determined to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, and Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, she can't stop thinking about performing her poems.
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The Popularity Papers Book 2: The Long-Distance Dispatch between Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
After spending a year studying popularity, Julie and Lydia are finally ready to put their hard-earned lessons to use in junior high. But before they can conquer the world together, Lydia's mom gets a job in London.
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The Popularity Papers Book 3: Words of (Questionable) Wisdom from Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
Twelve-year-old best friends Julie and Lydia are reunited after six months apart, but the news that their friend Sukie's mother has died after a long illness causes them to reevaluate their goals and focus on being supportive of the friends they already have.
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The Popularity Papers Book 4: The Rocky Road Trip of Lydia Goldblatt & Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
It's summertime, and Julie and Lydia are going on a road trip! After all the ups and downs of their first year in junior high, they're looking forward to seeing the sights and getting some new perspective on their quest for popularity.
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The Popularity Papers Book 5: The Awesomely Awful Melodies of Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
Fresh from their epic summer road trip, Lydia and Julie are back and ready to take seventh grade by storm. Well, at least Lydia is. She wants to start a band and reinvent herself as a rock star. After making Lydia promise that this is absolutely not another disaster-waiting-to-happen scheme for popularity, Julie agrees. Add Roland (expert at the guitar-like hardingfele) and Jane (expert at drama)...and the Macramé Owls are born! Unfortunately, none of them are expert musicians. Despite their lack of skills, Lydia and Julie find themselves riding a wave of notoriety. The girls may have accidentally stumbled upon the secret to popularity in their new rock 'n' roll personas. But there's still the problem of actually playing their instruments.
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The Popularity Papers Book 6: Love and Other Fiascos with Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
When Julie and Roland become an official couple, Lydia and Julie try to find romantic guidance, while Lydia's mother announces her plans to marry Lydia's soccer coach, Eric.
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The Popularity Papers Book 7: The Less-Than-Hidden Secrets and Final Revelations of Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
Lydia and Julie have been through many adventures as they navigated junior high and the search for popularity, but as they near the end of seventh grade, life seems to be settling into a familiar rhythm. And then ... disaster strikes! Literally. The peaceful world of Hamlin Junior High is rocked when the students learn that they're going to have to play host to new students whose junior high school burned down. The outside threat bands the Hamlin kids together against a common enemy--for a while. When someone gets their hands on Lydia and Julie's notebook and starts papering the school with some of the girls' most private thoughts, no one from either school wants anything to do with them. With the big, combined-school dance looming, how can the girls stop the war and redeem their rotten reputations?
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The Popularity Papers: Research for the Social Improvement and General Betterment of Lydia Goldblatt & Julie Graham-Chang
Amy Ignatow
Two best friends embark on a project to study the behavior and taste of the popular girls at their elementary school so that by the time they get to middle school they too will be in the right crowd. Novel appears in the form of a scrapbook.