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.

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Felix Yz

Lisa Bunker

Thirteen-year-old Felix Yz chronicles the final month before an experimental procedure meant to separate him from the fourth-dimensional creature, Zyx, with whom he was accidentally fused as a young child.
Finlater

Shawn Stewart Ruff

In this Lambda Literary Award-winning debut, the course of growing up in just-this-side-of-segregation 1970s Cincinnati, Ohio, seems predictable if uninspiring for Cliffy Douglas. That is, until the deadbeat father of this gifted 13-year-old black kid from the Finlater Gardens Projects appears out of nowhere. The real fun and trouble begin when Noah, a Jewish boy he meets in junior high school, takes him on a joyride to first lust and love.
Fire Song

Adam Garnet Jones

How can Shane reconcile his feelings for David with his desire for a better life? Shane is still reeling from the suicide of his kid sister, Destiny. How could he have missed the fact that she was so sad? He tries to share his grief with his girlfriend, Tara, but she's too concerned with her own needs to offer him much comfort. What he really wants is to be able to turn to the one person on the rez whom he loves--his friend, David. Things go from bad to worse as Shane's dream of going to university is shattered and his grieving mother withdraws from the world. Worst of all, he and David have to hide their relationship from everyone. Shane feels that his only chance of a better life is moving to Toronto, but David refuses to join him. When yet another tragedy strikes, the two boys have to make difficult choices about their future together. With deep insight into the life of Indigenous people on the reserve, this book masterfully portrays how a community looks to the past for guidance and comfort while fearing a future of poverty and shame.
Five, Six, Seven, Nate!

Tim Federle

Now on Broadway as second understudy for E.T., Nate Foster keeps in close contact with his best friend, Libby, as he faces his nemesis, and his own insecurities as the cast member with the least training and experience.
Flying Free

Jennifer C. Gregg

Narrated by a firefly captured by a five-year-old girl named Violet, who plans to use the firefly as her nightlight. Violet's mommies, Mommy Blue and Mama Red, go along with the idea, but the firefly refuses to live in a glass jar. After several attempts, the firefly devises the ultimate escape plan.
Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before

Karelia Stetz-Waters

Shy, intellectual, and living in rural Oregon, Triinu Hoffman just doesn't fit in. She does her best to hide behind her dyed hair and black wardrobe, but it's hard to ignore the bullying of Pip Weston and Principal Pinn. It's even harder to ignore the allure of other girls. As Triinu tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also the differences that can set her free. With everyone in town taking sides in the battle for equal rights in Oregon, Triinu must stand up for herself, learn what it is to love and have her heart broken, and become her own woman.
Freaks and Revelations

Davida Wills Hurwin

"You can come back when you're done being gay." Jason is a 13-year-old who comes out to his religious and conservative mother, only to be cast out of their home. Homeless, he learns how to survive, eventually turning to hustling as a way to live. Doug is a 17-year-old with an abusive father and a chip on his shoulder. Energized and empowered by violence, he gets mixed up with a group of Neo-Nazis. The lives of these two flawed teens spiral towards each other, and one fateful night their paths cross at a fast-food restaurant in Los Angeles, and a horrendous hate crime is committed. Freaks and Revelations is a raw and gripping novel based on the haunting true story of Timothy Zaal and Matthew Boger. Told in alternating perspectives by Jason (Matthew Boger) and Doug (Timothy Zaal), author Davida Wills Hurwin creates a fictional narrative that traces the tragic - but ultimately inspirational - journeys of two very polarized teens.
Freak Show

James St. James

Meet Billy Bloom, new student at the ultra-white, ultra-rich, ultra-conservative Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy and drag queen extraordinaire. Actually, ?drag queen? does not begin to describe Billy and his fabulousness. Any way you slice it, Billy is not a typical seventeen-year-old, and the Bible Belles, Aberzombies, and Football Heroes at the academy have never seen anyone quite like him before. But thanks to the help and support of one good friend, Billy?s able to take a stand for outcasts and underdogs everywhere in his own outrageous, over-thetop, sad, funny, brilliant, and unique way.
Friday with Jerome in Jamaica

Phylliss DelGreco, Jaclyn Roth, and Kathryn Silverio

In Friday with Jerome in Jamaica, Jessie spends the day at her nanny Georgia’s house in Jamaica, Queens, where she is warmly welcomed by Georgia’s multigenerational family. Papi, Georgia’s father, brightens up a rainy day by inviting Jessie and his grandson Jerome into his art studio, where he shows them how to unleash their creative juices. With Papi’s encouragement, Jessie is inspired to soar to new heights and express herself in an entirely new way.
From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

Jacqueline Woodson

Almost-fourteen-year-old Melanin Sun's comfortable, quiet life is shattered when his mother reveals she has fallen in love with a woman.
Gal and Noa's Daddies

Shosh Pinkas

Noa and Gal have two fathers, Itai and Yoav. They call them by their nicknames, Daddy-Yo and Daddy-I. Noa and Gal were born to gay parents in a process called surrogacy, with the help of two special women that enabled the arrival of the twins into the world. In this unique book, the writer, Shosh Pinkas, shares the story of many same-sex families around the world.
Gay in America

Scott Pasfield

A photographic survery of gay men in America. The photographer traveled across all fifty states to document the lives of 140 gay men from all walks of life.
Gay & Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights

Jerome Pohlen

Who transformed George Washington's demoralized troops at Valley Forge into a fighting force that defeated an empire? Who cracked Germany's Enigma code and shortened World War II? Who successfully lobbied the US Congress to outlaw child labor? And who organized the 1963 March on Washington? Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts, that's who...This up-to-date history includes the landmark Supreme Court decision making marriage equality the law of the land. Twenty-one activities enliven the history and demonstrate the spirited ways the LGBT community has pushed for positive social change.
Gay Power! The Stonewall Riots and the Gay Rights Movement, 1969

Betsy Kuhn

Explores the decades of discrimination and abuse that gay people endured in earlier eras. Also learn how gay people continue to fight for equal rights and recognition.
Gemini Bites

Patrick Ryan

When their parents announce they are taking in a fellow student for a month, 16-year-old twins Kyle and Judy sit up and take notice. Kyle has just come out of the closet to his family and fears he'll never know what it is like to date a guy. Judy is pretending to be born-again to attract a boy who heads a Bible study group. And Garret Johnson is new in town-- a mysterious loner who claims to be a vampire. Both twins are intrigued.
Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit

Jaye Robin Brown

Joanna Gordon has been out and proud for years, but when her popular radio evangelist father remarries and decides to move all three of them from Atlanta to the more conservative Rome, Georgia, he asks Jo to do the impossible: to lie low for the rest of her senior year. And Jo reluctantly agrees. Although it is (mostly) much easier for Jo to fit in as a straight girl, things get complicated when she meets Mary Carlson, the oh-so-tempting sister of her new friend at school. But Jo couldn't possibly think of breaking her promise to her dad. Even if she's starting to fall for the girl. Even if there's a chance Mary Carlson might be interested in her, too. Right?
Get It Together, Delilah

Erin Gough

Seventeen-year-old Delilah Green is doing her best to deal with a chaotic life--she is running the family cafe, The Flywheel, by herself because her father is on a vacation trying to get over his wife deserting him; she is getting flack at school because she is a lesbian, and one of the "in-girls" has started to come on to her, and she is hopelessly attracted to a girl named Rosa, who dances the flamingo outside the café every evening.
Getting It

Alex Sanchez

Hoping to impress a sexy female classmate, fifteen-year-old Carlos secretly hires gay student Sal to give him an image makeover, in exchange for Carlos's help in forming a Gay-Straight Alliance at their Texas high school.
Giraffe People

Jill Malone

In the 1990s military brat Cole Peters, daughter of a chaplain, must face the obstacles of figuring out her persona while being bounced between religion and military and multiple transitional homes. She meets Meghan, whose ambition is directed toward West Point. Cole's parent's eyes see the relationship as a good influence for their rebellious daughter...until Cole and Meghan become lovers.
Girl from Mars

Tamara Bach

Miriam dreams of escaping from her boring small-town life and going to the big city to start her own life, especially when she develops romantic feelings for a girl named Laura and forms a new outlook after a weekend in the city.
Girl in the Shadows

V. C. Andrews

After the death of her parents, April Taylor flees north to take a job looking after Mrs. Westington's deaf granddaughter, Echo, until the arrival of the girl's mother and her drug-dealing boyfriend puts both girls' lives in deadly danger.
Girls of Paper and Fire

Natasha Ngan

When Lei, seventeen, is stolen from her home to become one of nine Paper Girls, the Demon King's concubines, she proves to be more fire than paper.
Gloria Goes to Gay Pride

Lesléa Newman

Gloria and her two mothers join a parade celebrating Gay Pride Day.
God Loves Hair

Vivek Shraya

A collection of twenty-one short stories following a tender, intellectual, and curious child of Indian origin as he navigates the complex realms of sexuality, gender, racial politics, religion, and belonging. "I am often mistaken for a girl. Not just because I like to wear dresses or makeup. I don't mind. My parents are from India and here is not quite home. School isn't always safe and neither is my body. But I feel safe in my love for God. And God loves hair."
Going Bovine

Libba Bray

Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen-year-old who, after being diagnosed with Crutzfeldt-Jacob's (aka mad cow) disease, sets off on a road trip with a death-obsessed video gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital in an attempt to find a cure.