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.
This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by genre.
DIVerse Families is a comprehensive bibliography that demonstrates the growing diversity of families in the United States. This type of bibliography provides teachers, librarians, counselors, adoption agencies, children/young adults, and especially parents and grandparents needing to empower their children with materials that reflect their families.
Browse by Genre:
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A Home for Leo
Vin Vogel
Leo grew up in the sea. He has a family of sea lions he loves. He’s happy, but he has always known he was different. Then Leo’s suddenly reunited with his human parents, and he finds he loves them too. But he still feels like a fish out of water. Being from two worlds and having two families isn’t so easy. Leo has a lot to figure out…
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All My Stripes: A Story for Children with Autism
Shaina Rudolph and Danielle Royer
Zane rushes home to tell his mother about problems he faced during his school day, and she reminds him that while others may only see his "autism stripe," he has stripes for honesty, caring, and much more.
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An Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir
Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.
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An Enchantment of Ravens
Margaret Rogerson
Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel's paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron--Rook, the autumn prince--she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes--a weakness that could cost him his life. Furious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime.
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A New Barker in the House
Tomie DePaola
Twins Moffie and Morgie are excited when they hear that their family is adopting a three-year-old Hispanic boy.
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A Princess of Great Daring!
Tobi Hill-Meyer
When Jamie is ready to tell people that she's really a girl inside, she becomes a princess of great daring in a game she plays with her best friends to gather her courage. She's pleased (but not surprised) that her questing friends turn out to be just as loyal and true as any princess could want.
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Aru Shah and the End of Time
Roshani Chokshi
Twelve-year-old Aru stretches the truth to fit in at her private school, but when she is dared to prove an ancient lamp is cursed, she inadvertently frees an ancient demon.
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Ash
Malinda Lo
In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves.
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Bedtime for Baby Teddy
Tamara Arc-Dekker
Created for babies and young children, this happy and simple bedtime storybook reflects the familiar nighttime activities and routines of children and their lesbian parents. With basic text and gentle images this book offers a cozy story time moment for both children and mothers.
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Bigger Than a Bread Box
Laurel Snyder
Devastated when her parents separate, twelve-year-old Rebecca must move with her mother from Baltimore to Gran's house in Atlanta, where Rebecca discovers an old bread box with the power to grant any wish--so long as the wished-for thing fits in the bread box.
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Boats for Papa
Jessixa Bagley
Buckley and his Mama live in a cozy cabin by the ocean. He loves to carve boats out of the driftwood he finds on the beach nearby. He makes: big boats long boats short boats and tall boats, each one more beautiful than the last, and sends them out to sea. If they don't come back, he knows they've found their way to his papa, whom he misses very much.
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Breadcrumbs
Anne Ursu
Hazel and Jack are best friends until an accident with a magical mirror and a run-in with a villainous queen find Hazel on her own, entering an enchanted wood in the hopes of saving Jack's life.
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Bunnybear
Andrea J. Loney
Although Bunnybear was born a bear, he feels more like a bunny. He loves to bounce through the forest, wiggle his nose, and munch on strawberries. The other bears don't understand him, and neither do the bunnies. Will Bunnybear ever find a friend who likes him just the way he is?
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Caraval
Stephanie Garber
Welcome, welcome to Caraval--Stephanie Garber's sweeping tale of two sisters who escape their ruthless father when they enter the dangerous intrigue of a legendary game. Scarlett has never left the tiny island where she and her beloved sister Tella live with their powerful and cruel, father. Now Scarlett's father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval, the far-away, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show, are over. But this year, Scarlett's long-dreamt of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval's mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season's Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner. Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. But she nevertheless becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic with the other players in the game. And whether Caraval is real or not, she must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over, a dangerous domino effect of consequences is set off, and her sister disappears forever.
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Carry On
Rainbow Rowell
Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen. That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right. Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here--it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up. Carry On is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.
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Checkmate (Noughts & Crosses, #3)
Malorie Blackman
Rose has a Cross mother and a nought father in a society where the pale-skinned noughts are treated as inferiors and those with dual heritage face a life-long battle against deep-rooted prejudices. And as Rose takes her first steps away from Sephy and into this world, she finds herself drawn inexorably into more and more danger.
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Children of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi
Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.
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Cici: A Fairy's Tale #1 Believe Your Eyes
Cori Doerrfeld
When Cici's parents separate, her abuela moves in. On her tenth birthday, Cici wakes up with fairy wings and the ability to see who's a real friend and who's not. Will she keep her wings, when the truth is hard to face?
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Cici: A Fairy's Tale #2 A Truth In Sight
Cori Doerrfeld
Cici, a young fairy, is only joking when she uses her powers to play a trick on the popular girl at school. But the changes Cici made to her classmate will last forever if she doesn't learn to see the best in people.
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Cinder
Marissa Meyer
As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.
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Court of Fives
Kate Elliott
When a scheming lord tears Jess's family apart, she must rely on her unlikely friendship with Kal, a high-ranking Patron boy, and her skill at Fives, an intricate, multi-level athletic competition that offers a chance for glory, to protect her Commoner mother and mixed-race sisters and save her father's reputation.
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Crenshaw
Katherine Applegate
A story about a homeless boy and his imaginary friend that proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary.
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Curious George Joins the Team
Cynthia Platt
While on a playdate with his new friend, Tina, who uses a wheelchair, George sees some kids playing basketball and jumps right into the action, but Tina is too shy to join in, even though he knows she is a great player.
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Daughter of the Burning City
Amanda Foody
Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel, and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the festival's freak show. But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that--illusions, and not truly real. Or so she has always believed--until one of them is murdered. Sorina must find the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn't exist. Her search leads her to the gossip-worker Luca, and their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance into sinister corners of the festival. But as the killer continues to murder Sorina's illusions, she must get to the horrifying truth before all her loved ones disappear.
