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:
Incarceration
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Gaijin: American Prisoner of War
Matt Faulkner
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a thirteen-year-old California boy who is half Japanese is sent to an internment camp. Story based on the history of the author's great-aunt.
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Hey, Kiddo
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
A National Book Award Finalist! Hey, Kiddo is a profoundly important memoir about growing up in a family grappling with addiction, and finding the art that helps you survive.
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Jakeman
Deborah Ellis
Jake and his older sister, Shoshonna, along with a busload of kids, visit their mother in prison regularly. But this time the journey turns into a series of misadventures, and the kids find themselves on their own, hatching a plan to find the Governor and plead with him to pardon their moms.
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Kofi's Mom
Richard W. Dyches
Kofi's Mom is a story about Kofi whose mother is sent to prison. It explores his feelings of loss and confusion. Through friends at school, Kofi begins to talk about his mom and to look forward to her return.
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Mama Loves Me from Away
Pat Brisson
When a mother and daughter are separated by the mother's incarceration, they find a special way to keep their loving relationship alive.
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Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation
Edwidge Danticat
When Saya's mother is sent to jail as an illegal immigrant, she sends her daughter a cassette tape with a song and a bedtime story, which inspires Saya to write a story of her own -- one that just might bring her mother home.
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Mexican Whiteboy
Matt de la Peña
Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.
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Monkey See, Monkey Do
Barthe DeClements
Jerry's adored father seems unable to stay out of jail, causing the sixth grader anguish at home and in school.
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More Than We Can Tell
Brigid Kemmerer
When Rev Fletcher and Emma Blue meet, they both long to share secrets, his of being abused by his birth father, hers of her parents' failing marriage and an online troll who truly frightens her.
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Mountain Dog
Margarita Engle
When Tony's mother is sent to jail, he is sent to stay with a great uncle he has never met in Sierra Nevada. It is a daunting move―Tony's new world bears no semblance to his previous one. But slowly, against a remote and remarkable backdrop, the scars from Tony's troubled past begin to heal.With his Tió and a search-and-rescue dog named Gabe by his side, he learns how to track wild animals, is welcomed to the Cowboy Church, and makes new friends at the Mountain School. Most importantly though, it is through Gabe that Tony discovers unconditional love for the first time.
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My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life
Rachel Cohn
On her sixteenth birthday, Elle Zoellner leaves the foster care system to live with the father she never knew in Tokyo, Japan.
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My Daddy is in Jail
Janet Bender
My Daddy is in Jail is a long overdue resource for helping children cope with the incarceration of a loved one. It includes a read-aloud story discussion guide caregiver suggestions and optional small group counseling activities. With this book helping professionals and other caring adults will find themselves better equipped to provide information and support to these vulnerable children and their families.
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My Daddy's in Jail
Anthony Curcio
There are nearly three million adults in the U.S. alone that are in prison or jail. Many of these being parents that leave behind unanswered questions with their children: What is jail? Why did this happen? Is it my fault? Is my daddy (or mommy) bad? Do they love me? My Daddy's in Jail is a story of two bears who have a father in prison. The book is narrated by a very odd cockroach.
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My Father's Son
Terri Fields
Kevin's life of high school classes, crushes, basketball, and shuttling between his parents' homes falls apart when his father is arrested as a suspected serial killer, leading Kevin to a new understanding of his family and himself.
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Nine Candles
Maria Testa
After visiting his mother in prison on his seventh birthday, Raymond wishes it were his ninth birthday when Mama has promised to be home with his dad and him.
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Opposite of Always
Justin A. Reynolds
After falling for Kate, her unexpected death sends Jack back in time to the moment they first met. He soon learns that his actions have consequences when someone else close to him dies.
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Orbiting Jupiter
Gary D. Schmidt
Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he'll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice.
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Peas and Carrots
Tanita S. Davis
After her mother is arrested, fifteen-year-old Dess is sent to live with the foster family that took in her baby brother several years before, and although she and her new foster sister, Hope, clash immediately, they soon realize they have much in common.
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Pieces of Why
K.L. Going
Tia lives with her mom in a high-risk neighborhood in New Orleans and loves singing gospel in the Rainbow Choir with Keisha, her boisterous and assertive best friend. Tia's dream is to change the world with her voice; and by all accounts, she might be talented enough. But when a shooting happens in her neighborhood and she learns the truth about the crime that sent her father to prison years ago, Tia finds she can't sing anymore.
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Rosie and Skate
Beth Ann Bauman
New Jersey sisters Rosie, aged fifteen, and Skate, aged sixteen, cope differently with their father's alcoholism and incarceration, but manage to stay close to one another as they strive to lead normal lives and find hope for the future.
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Ruby on the Outside
Nora Raleigh Baskin
Eleven-year-old Ruby Danes has a real best friend for the first time ever, but agonizes over whether or not to tell her a secret she has never shared with anyone--that her mother has been in prison since Ruby was five--and over whether to express her anger to her mother.
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Screaming Divas
Suzanne Kamata
A teenage girl band in 1980s South Carolina becomes a local sensation, but just as its members are about to achieve their rock girl dreams, tragedy strikes.
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The 57 Bus
Dashka Slater
One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter. One moment that changes both of their lives forever. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The 57 Bus is Dashka Slater's true account of the case that garnered international attention and thrust both teenagers into the spotlight.
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The Big House
Carolyn Coman
When Ivy and Ray's parents are sent to jail, and they are left in the custody of their parent's accusers, they decide to look for evidence that will "spring" their parents.
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The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros
For Esperanza, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, life is an endless landscape of concrete and run-down tenements, and she tries to rise above the hopelessness.