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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A Silent Voice, Volume 2
Yoshitoki Oima
It’s been five years since Shoya Ishida bullied Shoko Nishimiya so badly she left their elementary school, because of one simple difference between them: Shoya can hear, and Shoko can’t. In the intervening time, Shoya’s life has changed completely. Shunned by his friends, Shoya’s longed for the chance to make up for his cruelty. When it finally comes, will he find the voice to tell Shoko he’s changed? And will Shoko listen?
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A Silent Voice, Volume 3
Yoshitoki Oima
Shoya’s decided to do everything he can to make up for how terribly he treated Shoko, his former classmate who can’t hear. But more than the challenge of learning to communicate, it means facing a past he thought he’d left behind forever. Now a reunion with old friends will transform Shoya, and his relationship with Shoko.
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A Silent Voice, Volume 4
Yoshitoki Oima
Once upon a time, Shoya was terribly cruel to Shoko, his elementary school classmate who couldn’t hear. To make up for his past sins, Shoya has devoted himself to repaying the debt of happiness he owes. So when Shoko faces a romantic setback, Shoya assembles some familiar faces from their past for a trip to the amusement park that may just change things for Shoya, too.
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A Silent Voice, Volume 5
Yoshitoki Oima
Despite their tense pasts, Shoya begins to embrace the friend group that used to terrorize Shoko because she couldn’t hear. Now that summer vacation is in full swing, the crew can work together to film Tomohiro’s eccentric movie. Each fun-filled day lazily passes by, but doubt tugs at Shoya’s heavy heart and he is desperate to cling on to meaningful moments before they are gone.
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A Silent Voice, Volume 6
Yoshitoki Oima
Time stands still for both Shoya and Shoko. Triggered by past traumas, Shoya coldly attacked his friends and burnt the bridges he first set out to rebuild. Shoko feels a deep responsibility for this disaster and attempts to pay for it by taking her own life. Meanwhile, each of their friends finally show their true colors. After everything has fallen apart, how will they mend their hearts and put the pieces back together?
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A Silent Voice, Volume 7
Yoshitoki Oima
Shoya’s life hangs on by a thread after he jumped just in time to save Shoko. Despite the despair, Shoko is determined to move forward and get back what she thinks she has ruined… But broken friendships can heal, too. Quietly, but surely, the disbanded crew finds their spirit — the show must go on! As the movie-making reconvenes, the kids begin to transform the world that had once been so cruel to them. What could the future hold for everyone?
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A Sister for Matthew: A Story About Adoption
Pamela Kennedy
When Matthew's parents decide to adopt a baby girl from China he has many questions, but by the time she arrives, he is excited about his new sister.
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As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl
John Colapinto
In 1967, after a baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment. On the advice of a renowned expert in gender identity and sexual reassignment, the boy was surgically altered to live as a girl. This book is the human drama of one man's - and one family's - amazing survival in the face of odds.
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A Solitary Blue
Cynthia Voigt
Jeff's mother, who deserted the family years before, reenters his life and widens the gap between Jeff and his father, a gap that only truth, love, and friendship can heal.
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A Step Toward Falling
Cammie McGovern
When their inaction during an attack on a disabled girl earns them community service at a center for people with disabilities, Emily and Lucas bond while trying to make up for their mistake, and wonder if they can make it right with the girl who suffered because of them.
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A Thirst for Home
Christine Leronimo
Alemitu lives with her mother in a poor village in Ethiopia, where she must walk miles for water and hunger roars in her belly. Even though life is difficult, she dreams of someday knowing more about the world. When her mother has no choice but to leave her at an orphanage to give her a chance at a better life, an American family adopts Alemitu.
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A Time of Fire
Robert Westall
In England during World War II, with his mother dead from a German bomb and his father off in training and action but keeping him informed by letter, Sonny tries to understand the darkest truths of war and retribution.
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A Time to Dance
Padma Venkatraman
In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.
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At My House What Makes a Family is Love
Dee Dee Walter
What makes a family? A single mom? Two Dads? This book talks about all the different families. Families are ever changing in today's society. This shows that all families should be embraced and celebrated. Families are what makes them and the ultimate connecting factor is love.
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A Trick of the Light
Lois Metzger
Fifteen-year-old Mike desperately attempts to take control as his parents separate and his life falls apart.
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At the Bottom of the World (Jack and the Geniuses Series #1)
Bill Nye and Gregory Mone
Traveling to Antarctica for a prestigious science competition, twelve-year-old Jack and his genius foster siblings, Ava and Matt, become caught up in a mystery involving a missing scientist.
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Aunt Minnie McGranahan
Mary Skillings Prigger
The townspeople in St. Clere, Kansas, are sure it will never work out when the neat and orderly spinster, Minnie McGranahan, takes her nine orphaned nieces and nephews into her home in 1920.
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Aunt Pearl
Monica Kulling
Aunt Pearl arrives one day pushing a shopping cart full of her worldly goods. Her sister Rose has invited her to come live with her family. Six-year-old Marta is happy to meet her aunt, who takes her out to look for treasure on garbage day, and who shows her camp group how to decorate a coffee table with bottle caps. But almost immediately, Pearl and Rose start to clash ― over Pearl’s belongings crammed into the house, and over Rose’s household rules. As the weeks pass, Pearl grows quieter and more withdrawn, until, one morning, she is gone. Acclaimed author Monica Kulling brings sensitivity to this story about homelessness, family and love, beautifully illustrated in Irene Luxbacher’s rich collage style.
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A Visit to the Big House
Oliver Butterworth
When Willy, Rose, and their mother go to visit Daddy in prison, they are quite anxious. But once Daddy appears and they can talk and ask questions.
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Away
Emil Sher
A gentle tale told entirely through sticky notes between a mother and daughter as the girl's departure for her first summer camp draws near demonstrates how love can be found even in scribbled messages and other unlikely places.
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Babu's Song
Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen
In Tanzania, Bernardi's mute grandfather makes him a wonderful music box and then helps him realize his dream of owning a soccer ball and going to school.
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Bait
Alex Sanchez
Diego keeps getting into trouble because of his explosive temper until he finally finds a probation officer who helps him get to the root of his anger so that he can stop running from his past.
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Ball Don't Lie
Matt De La Pena
Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid with nowhere to call home but the street, and an outer shell so tough that no one will take him in. He started out life so far behind the pack that the finish line seems nearly unreachable. He’s a white boy living and playing in a world where he doesn’t seem to belong. But Sticky can ball. And basketball might just be his ticket out . . . if he can only realize that he doesn’t have to be the person everyone else expects him to be.
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Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope
Nikki Grimes
When David asks his mother about the man on television, she tells him the story of Barack Obama, discussing his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, his parents' divorce, and his desire to help others.
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Beast
Brie Spangler
After falling off the roof, fifteen-year-old misfit Dylan must attend a therapy group for self-harmers where he meets Jamie, a beautiful and amazing person he does not know is transgender.