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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Vengeance Road
Erin Bowman
When Kate Thompson’s father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the eighteen-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.
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Vintage: A Ghost Story
Steve Berman
A lonely seventeen-year-old who has dreamed of meeting a different and special boy desperately seeks help from his friend Trace, a Goth girl, to free him from the clutches of a handsome ghost he has met on a rural New Jersey highway.
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Visiting Day
Jacqueline Woodson and James E. Ransome
A young girl and her grandmother visit the girl's father in prison.
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Waiting for May
Janet Morgan Stoeke
A young boy looks forward to the day when a new sister, who will be adopted from China, joins his family.
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Waiting for Normal
Leslie Connor
Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.
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Waiting for You
Susane Colasanti
It's sophomore year, and Marisa is ready for a fresh start and, hopefully, her first real boyfriend. But after popular Derek asks her out, things get complicated. Not only do her parents unexpectedly separate, but Marisa has a fight with her best friend, and Derek, the love of her life, delivers a shocking disappointment. The only things keeping Marisa together are the podcasts from the anonymous DJ, who seems to totally understand Marisa. But she doesn't know who he is ... or maybe she does.
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Walk Two Moons
Sharon Creech
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.
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Walk with Me
Jairo Buitrago
A little girl imagines a lion taking the place of her father who no longer lives with her family, an animal that keeps her safe on her travels from school to home.
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War of the Eagles
Eric Walters
During World War II near Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Jed comes to better understand and take pride in his British and native Tsimshian ancestry through caring for an injured eagle at a military fort and losing his Japanese Canadian best friend to an internment camp.
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Was It the Chocolate Pudding?: A Story for Little Kids About Divorce
Sandra Levins
A little boy learns that he did not cause his parent's divorce because of the mess he made with chocolate pudding, and describes his new life living with his dad and seeing his mom on weekends.
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Water Balloon
Audrey Vernick
A warm debut novel about friendship and first love, from a popular picture-book author. Marley's life is as precarious as an overfull water balloonone false move and everything will burst. Her best friends are pulling away from her, and her parents, newly separated, have decided she should spend the summer with her dad in his new house, with a job she didn't ask for and certainly doesn't want. On the upside is a cute boy who loves dogs as much as Marley does ... but young love has lots of opportunity for humiliation and misinterpreted signals. Luckily Marley is a girl who trusts her instincts and knows the truth when she sees it, making her an immensely appealing character and her story funny, heartfelt, and emotionally true.
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Water Bugs and Dragonflies: Explaining Death to Young Children
Doris Stickney
After a water bug suddenly leaves her pond and is transformed into a dragonfly, her friends' questions about such departures are like those children ask when someone dies.
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Wave Good-Bye
Francess Lantz
Rae hasn't been her usual self lately, and no one at camp seems to know why. Her crabby attitude is starting to affect everyone, including her best friend, Luna. When Luna catches Rae precariously riding the piers, she decides to confront her friend head-on. Finally Rae admits the truth: her parents have decided to separate, and even worse -- her father's company is relocating him to Chicago. Now Rae feels torn between staying in southern California with her overbearing mother and moving with her father to an unfamiliar city. Though leaving would ease the tension between Rae and her mom, it would mean the end of Rae's surfing, too. Will Luna be able to convince Rae to stick around or will she lose her best friend forever?
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We Adopted You, Benjamin Koo
Linda Walvoord
Nine-year-old Benjamin Koo Andrews, adopted from Korea as an infant, describes what it's like to grow up adopted from another country.
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We are Adopted
Jennifer Moore-Mallinos
An adopted girl welcomes her baby brother whom her parents have also adopted from Russia, and she describes the reasons for adoption, what life is like as an adopted child, and her interactions with other adopted children.
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We Are Family
Patricia Hegarty
Explore the differences and similarities of eight families in this gentle, rhyming picture book.
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We Are Okay
Nina LaCour
Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.
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We Are the Ants
Shaun David Hutchinson
Abducted by aliens periodically throughout his youth, Henry Denton is informed by his erstwhile captors that they will end the world in 144 days unless he stops them by deciding that humanity is worth saving.
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We Belong Together: A Book About Adoption and Families
Todd Parr
The joy of adoption and bringing families together is presented in this tale.
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We Don't Look Like Our Mom and Dad
Harriet Langsam Sobol
A photo-essay on the life of the Levin family, an American couple and their two Korean-born adopted sons, ten-year-old Eric and eleven-year-old Joshua.
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Weekends with Max and His Dad
Linda Urban
Third-grader Max pursues neighborhood adventures with his dad as they both adjust to recent changes in their family.
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Welcome Home, Forever Child: A Celebration of Children Adopted as Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Beyond
Christine Mitchell
A book that genuinely celebrates a young child joining their forever family past infancy. With its touching message of love and reassurance, and whimsical illustrations, Welcome Home, Forever Child is sure to be cherished by children and parents alike. While best suited to children ages two to eight, this gem will undoubtedly be enjoyed by older children as well. Most children's adoption books reflect infant adoptions, and may not be appropriate for the older child who spent their early years in foster care or an orphanage. Welcome Home, Forever Child is a much needed book that social workers and therapists will want to recommend to families who adopted their child past the age of two. The book helps parents reassure children of their permanent place in the new family, and of how much they are wanted and loved. It will also make a very special and meaningful keepsake gift for a child upon joining his or her new family, upon finalizing the adoption, or upon the anniversary of either event.
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Welcome Home Little Baby
Lisa Harper
Based on a poem the author wrote immediately after the arrival of their first adopted child, this story is perfect for anyone who has adopted or is going to adopt.
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Welcome to Bordertown
Holly Black and Ellen Kushner
Stories and poems set in the urban land of Bordertown, a city on the edge of the faerie and human world, populated by human and elfin runaways.
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Welcome to the Family
Mary Hoffman
Introduces different types of households and discusses families with children, adoption, foster parents, same-sex parents, and fertility treatments.