Browse by Race & Culture:
Interracial
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Shades of People
Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly
An author and photographer join forces in this pictorial essay on skin color, demonstrating the different appearances children can have, but reminding the reader that they are still children that enjoy the same things. Like a wrapped gift, the authors' message is that skin is just a covering and that you cannot tell what someone is like from the color of their skin.
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Shanghai Messenger
Andrea Cheng
A free-verse novel about eleven-year-old Xiao Mei's visit with her extended family in China, where the Chinese-American girl finds many differences but also the similarities that bind a family together.
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Silver Shoes
Caroline Binch
Molly loves to dance, and she desperately wants some silver shoes for her first dance class. But her mum says she has to wait!
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Since We're Friends: An Autism Picture Book
Celeste Shally
A boy describes his friendship with Matt, whose autism spectrum disorder causes him to behave strangely at times, and how he make things easier for Matt at school and in their neighborhood.
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Singing Tree and Laughing Water
Sylvia Hardwick
Relates the adventures of two Native American sisters after they go to live with a foster mother.
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Sisters
Judith Caseley
Kika has just been adopted -- and she's worried. There's so much that's new to her: a different language, new friends to make, and something she's never had before -- a family. Melissa has a new sister -- and she's excited. There's so much to share with Kika: trips to the playground, afternoons at the library, and birthday parties. Through each new experience, Kika and Melissa discover that sisterhood can be fun, challenging, and sometimes unpredictable, but always rewarding. Best of all, a sister is a friend for life.
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Slant
Laura E. Williams
Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called "slant" and "gook," and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish--and a long-kept secret about her mother's death is revealed--Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.
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Sliding into Home
Nina Vincent
Thirteen-year-old Flip Simpson's ideal life just began to crumble. His adoptive parents are splitting up. He's moving from the only home he's ever known. He has to leave before his baseball team finishes the playoffs. And his little sister is his only companion. Flip folds under the weight of so much loss until he meets Ricki, an indigenous classmate who loves baseball and gives Flip a sense of pride in his Mayan roots, and Zorba, an eccentric houseboat dweller who is a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Willy Wonka. Zorba possesses an uncanny ability to sense Flip's fears and doubts and inspires the courage Flip needs to overcome both. Just as life begins to look up, Flip is faced with the challenge of a racist bully. Steve picks at the wounds Flip has tried so hard to mend and brings to the surface questions Flip didn't know he had about race, culture and belonging. Will Flip rise to the challenge and face Steve, or retreat into himself once again?
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Someone Like Summer
M.E. Kerr
An upper-middle-class white girl from Long Island and an immigrant worker from Colombia fall in love despite objections from both their families and their community.
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Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry
Bebe Moore Campbell
A little girl learns coping skills with the help of her grandmother, neighbors and school friends, when her mother's mental illness disrupts her daily routine.
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Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie
Norton Juster
A little girl spends time with her Poppy and Nana and answers to two very different nicknames.
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Spacegirl Pukes
Katy Watson
Young spacegirl is especially lucky to have two mothers and a very curious cat nearby when rocket troubles and nausea begin.
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Splash, Anna Hibiscus
Atinuke .
Anna Hibiscus goes to the beach with her family and has trouble finding someone to splash in the water with her.
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Spork
Kyo Maclear
His mum is a spoon, his dad is a fork, and he's a bit of both: he's Spork, a utensil who just doesn't seem to fit into the regimented world of the cutlery drawer, and this is his "multi-cutlery" tale, a humorous commentary on individuality and tolerance, that capture the experience and emotions of all who have ever wondered about their place in the world.
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Star of the Week: A Story of Love, Adoption, and Brownies with Sprinkles
Darlene Friedman
As her turn to be "Star of the Week" in her kindergarten class approaches, Cassidy-Li puts together a poster with pictures of her family, friends, and pets, and wonders about her birthparents in China.
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Stella by Starlight
Sharon M. Draper
When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.
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Still a Family
Brenda Reeves Sturgis
A little girl and her parents have lost their home and must live in a homeless shelter. Even worse, due to a common shelter policy, her dad must live in a men's shelter, separated from her and her mom. Despite these circumstances, the family still finds time to be together. They meet at the park to play hide-and-seek, slide on slides, and pet puppies. While the young girl wishes for better days when her family is together again under a roof of their very own, she continues to remind herself that they're still a family even in times of separation.
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Summer of the Oak Moon
Laura Templeton
Rejected by the exclusive women's college she has her heart set on, Tess Seibert dreads the hot, aimless summer ahead. But when a chance encounter with a snake introduces her to Jacob Lane, a relationship blooms, challenging everything she's ever believed about love. When Jacob confesses that Tess's uncle is trying to steal his family's land, Tess comes face-to-face with the hatred that simmers just below the surface of the bay and marshes she's loved since birth.
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Sweethearts of Rhythm
Marilyn Nelson
A look at a 1940's all-female jazz band, that originated from a boarding school in Mississippi and found its way to the most famous ballrooms in the country, offering solace during the hard years of the war.
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Sweet Moon Baby
Karen Henry Clark
The smiling moon watches over a baby girl in China whose parents love her but cannot take care of her, and guides a childless couple that lives far away to the daughter for whom they yearn.
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That's My Daddy and Pop
Tina Rella
That's My Daddy and Pop is the heartwarming story of Jessie, a little girl with two fathers. Jessie doesn't realize that her family isn't 'typical' until a girl in her class asks about her mom. Jessie's Daddy and Pop tell her about the amazing journey they took to adopt her.
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The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie
Junior, who is already beaten up regularly for being a skinny kid in glasses, goes to the rich white school miles away. Now he's a traget there as well. How he survives all this is an absolute shining must-read and a triumph of the human spirit.
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The Aunt in Our House
Angela Johnson
When The Aunt comes to live with them, the entire family enjoys her company and helps her forget about the home she has lost.
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The Best Single Mom in the World
Mary Zisk
A girl tells how her mother decided to become a single parent and traveled overseas to adopt her and describes their happy life as a family.
