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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Families are Forever

Craig Shemin

Rain meets Bo and her new "forever" Mom and they become a brand new family. Families are Forever is a heartwarming tale about family love and beginnings. The story introduces Rain, a nearly six year old Chinese-American adopted girl, and tells how she found her 'forever family,' a single mother in America.
Families, Families, Families!

Suzanne Lang

A host of animals portrays all kinds of non-traditional families.
Family

Isabell Monk

Hope's new and unusual dessert blends well with the traditional dishes prepared by her cousins and Aunt Poogee at their annual summer get-together.
Finding Joy

Marion Coste

Shu-li, an infant girl who had to be sent away by her family in China, is adopted by an American family and renamed Joy.
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.
First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover

Mitali Perkins

During her father's presidential campaign, sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton, who was adopted from Pakistan at the age of three, struggles with campaign staffers who want to give her a more "all-American" image and create a fake weblog in her name.
Forbidden Love

Gary B. Nash

Presents accounts of how mainly anonymous Americans have defied the official racial ideology and points out how guardians of the past have written that side of our history out of the record.
Forever, or a Long, Long Time

Caela Carter

Flora and her brother, Julian, don’t believe they were born. They’ve lived in so many foster homes, they can’t remember where they came from. And even now that they’ve been adopted, Flora still struggles to believe that they’ve found their forever home. So along with their new mother, Flora and Julian begin a journey to go back and discover their past—for only then can they really begin to build their future.
For My Family, Love, Allie

Ellen B. Senisi

Allie, whose father is black and mother is white, decides to make special food as a present for her relatives when they come for a big family party.
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.
Full Cicada Moon

Marilyn Hilton

In 1969 twelve-year-old Mimi and her family move to an all-white town in Vermont, where Mimi's mixed-race background and interest in "boyish" topics like astronomy make her feel like an outsider.
Gator on the Loose

Sue Stauffacher

Chaos ensues when Keisha's father brings an escaped alligator home to Carter's Urban Rescue, but it gets out of the bathroom while Grandma is guarding it.
Gem

Emma Kallok

Soon after her saxophone-playing neighbor composes a special song, a young girl's baby sister arrives and receives an appropriate name.
Ginger Brown: Too Many Houses

Sharon Dennis Wyeth, Cornelius Van Wright, and Ying-Hwa Hu

When her parents get a divorce, six-year-old Ginger lives for a while with each set of grandparents and begins to understand her mixed background and her new family situation.
Goldie Vance, Volume Four

Hope Larson and Jackie Ball

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance has an insatiable curiosity and dreams of one day becoming a detective. Luckily for Goldie, with the St. Pascal Rockin’ the Beach Music Festival coming to town, there’s plenty of inexplicable shenanigans keeping her gumshoe brain busy, from mysterious power outages, to missing musicians, to Russian spies hiding in the shadows.
Goldie Vance, Volume One

Hope Larson

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place. Her mom, who divorced her dad years ago, works as a live mermaid at a club downtown. Goldie has an insatiable curiosity, which explains her dream to one day become the hotel’s in-house detective. When Charles, the current detective, encounters a case he can’t crack, he agrees to mentor Goldie in exchange for her help solving the mystery.
Goldie Vance, Volume Three

Hope Larson and Jackie Ball

Sixteen-year-old Marigold "Goldie" Vance has an insatiable curiosity. She lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place, and it's her dream to one day become the hotel's in-house detective. When Sugar, the spoiled daughter of the crossed Palm's owner, come to Goldie with a mystery of her own, Goldie dives headfirst into the world of Prescription 1 racing, jealousy, and sabotage. There may be more to Sugar and her family than meets the eye...even an eye as keen as Goldie's!
Goldie Vance, Volume Two

Hope Larson

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place. Her mom, who divorced her dad years ago, works as a live mermaid at a club downtown. Goldie has an insatiable curiosity, which explains her dream to one day become the hotel’s in-house detective. For now she has to settle for helping out the current hotel detective, Walter. When a mysterious astronaut washes up on the beach, Goldie and her best friend Cheryl are on the case! Where did she come from? Where was she going? And what does she want with...Cheryl?
Goodbye Stranger

Rebecca Stead

As Bridge makes her way through seventh grade on Manhattan's Upper West Side with her best friends, curvacious Em, crusader Tab, and a curious new friend--or more than friend--Sherm, she finds the answer she has been seeking since she barely survived an accident at age eight: "What is my purpose?"
Goyangi Means Cat

Christine McDonnell

An understanding cat helps a young Korean girl adjust to her new home in America.
Gracias/Thanks

Pat Mora

A young multiracial boy celebrates family, friendship, and fun by telling about some of the everyday things for which he is thankful.
Grandfather Counts

Andrea Cheng and Ange Zhang

When her maternal grandfather comes from China, Helen, who is biracial, develops a special bond with him despite their age and language differences.
GreenBean: True Blue Family

Elizabeth Blake

Greenbean is worried that she does not belong in her family because she is different, but discovers that belonging is about something different.
Greenglass House

Kate Milford

It's wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler's inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers' adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo's home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook's daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House -- and themselves.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Lisa Dunn-Dern

An interracial family enjoys a Saturday ritual. After a pancake breakfast, the mother goes to a hair salon, while the little girl and father style each other's hair. Because her father is bald, the little girl must use her imagination, play-dough, and ribbons to create his hair-do. Each week, the family enjoys each other's new hairstyles.