K-3 Books | University of Central Florida

This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by Grades K-3.

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.

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Anna Day and the O-Ring

Elaine Wickens

Evan and his two mothers try to assemble a tent and find that Anna Day, the dog, has hidden the o-ring.
Anna Hibiscus

Atinuke .

Anna Hibiscus, who lives in Africa with her whole family, loves to splash in the sea and have parties for her aunties, but Anna would love to see snow.
Annie's Plaid Shirt

Stacy B. Davids

Annie loves her plaid shirt and wears it everywhere. But one day her mom tells Annie that she must wear a dress to her uncle's wedding. Annie protests, but her mom insists and buys her a fancy new dress anyway. Annie is miserable. She feels weird in dresses. Why can't her mom understand? Then Annie has an idea. But will her mom agree? Annie's Plaid Shirt will inspire readers to be themselves and will touch the hearts of those who love them.
Antonio's Card / La tarjeta de Antonio

Rigoberto Gonzalez and Cecilia Concepcion Alvarez

With Mother's Day coming, Antonio finds he has to decide about what is important to him when his classmates make fun of the unusual appearance of his mother's partner, Leslie.
A Path of Stars

Anne Sibley O'Brien

A refugee from Cambodia, Dara's beloved grandmother is grief-stricken when she learns her brother has died, and it is up to Dara to try and heal her.
A Picture Book of Helen Keller

David A. Adler

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. When she was just a year and a half old, she was left blind and deaf from an illness. In a very simple text, the author covers the important facts of Helen Keller's life. Besides her extraordinary work with teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan, she published several books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Her bravery, brilliance, and spirit brought hope to millions of disabled people.
A Picture Book of Louis Braille

David A. Adler

Presents the life of the nineteenth-century Frenchman, accidentally blinded as a child, who originated the raised dot system of reading and writing used throughout the world by the blind.
A Piece of Home

Jeri Watts

When Hee Jun’s family moves from Korea to West Virginia, he struggles to adjust to his new home. His eyes are not big and round like his classmates’, and he can’t understand anything the teacher says, even when she speaks s-l-o-w-l-y and loudly at him. As he lies in bed at night, the sky seems smaller and darker. But little by little Hee Jun begins to learn English words and make friends on the playground. And one day he is invited to a classmate’s house, where he sees a flower he knows from his garden in Korea — mugunghwa, or rose of Sharon, as his friend tells him — and Hee Jun is happy to bring a shoot to his grandmother to plant a “piece of home” in their new garden. Lyrical prose and lovely illustrations combine in a gentle, realistic story about finding connections in an unfamiliar world.
A Pillow for My Mom

Charissa Sgouros

Through the changing seasons a young girl struggles with her concern and love for her mother who is sick in hospital.
A Plan for Pops

Heather Smith

Lou spends every Saturday with Grandad and Pops. They walk to the library hand in hand, like a chain of paper dolls. Grandad reads books about science and design, Pops listens to rock and roll, and Lou bounces from lap to lap. But everything changes one Saturday. Pops has a fall. That night there is terrible news: Pops will be confined to a wheelchair, not just for now, but for always. Unable to cope with his new circumstances, he becomes withdrawn and shuts himself in his room. Hearing Grandad trying to cheer up Pops inspires Lou to make a plan. Using skills learned from Grandad, and with a little help from their neighbors, Lou comes up with a plan for Pops.
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.
Apt. 3

Ezra Jack Keats

On a rainy day two brothers try to discover who is playing the harmonica they hear in their apartment building.
Are You a Boy or a Girl?

Karleen Pendleton Jimenez

Are you a boy or a girl? opens the conversation of what makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl. It is the story of a child thinking through who she is, a child learning through her mother's love how to be both strong and soft.
Armond Goes to a Party: A Book about Asperger's and Friendship

Nancy Carlson

Armond doesn't want to go to Felicia's birthday party. Parties are noisy, disorganized, and smelly--all things that are hard for a kid with Asperger's. Worst of all is socializing with other kids. But with the support of Felicia and her mom, good friends who know how to help him, he not only gets through the party, but also has fun. When his mom picks him up, Armond admits the party was not easy, but he feels good that he faced the challenge--and that he's a good friend.
A Safe Place

Maxine Trottier

To escape her father's abuse, Emily and her mother come to a shelter where they find a safe place to stay with other women and children in similar circumstances. At night, a little girl and her mother seek safety from an abusive daddy by going to a safe place, the white house on the hill.
Asha's Mums

Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse

Asha, an African-Canadian girl whose lesbian mums become an issue for the teacher and the curiosity of classmates, responds with clarity and assuredness that having two mums is no big deal--they are a family.
A Sister for Matthew: A Story About Adoption

Pamela Kennedy

When Matthew's parents decide to adopt a baby girl from China he has many questions, but by the time she arrives, he is excited about his new sister.
A Taste of Colored Water

Matt Faulkner

LuLu and Jelly are very excited to see the "colored" water they heard about in the city's water fountain, but are surprised to learn what "colored" water actually means.
A Thirst for Home

Christine Leronimo

Alemitu lives with her mother in a poor village in Ethiopia, where she must walk miles for water and hunger roars in her belly. Even though life is difficult, she dreams of someday knowing more about the world. When her mother has no choice but to leave her at an orphanage to give her a chance at a better life, an American family adopts Alemitu.
Aunt Minnie McGranahan

Mary Skillings Prigger

The townspeople in St. Clere, Kansas, are sure it will never work out when the neat and orderly spinster, Minnie McGranahan, takes her nine orphaned nieces and nephews into her home in 1920.
Aunt Pearl

Monica Kulling

Aunt Pearl arrives one day pushing a shopping cart full of her worldly goods. Her sister Rose has invited her to come live with her family. Six-year-old Marta is happy to meet her aunt, who takes her out to look for treasure on garbage day, and who shows her camp group how to decorate a coffee table with bottle caps. But almost immediately, Pearl and Rose start to clash ― over Pearl’s belongings crammed into the house, and over Rose’s household rules. As the weeks pass, Pearl grows quieter and more withdrawn, until, one morning, she is gone. Acclaimed author Monica Kulling brings sensitivity to this story about homelessness, family and love, beautifully illustrated in Irene Luxbacher’s rich collage style.
Autism and Me: Sibling Stories

Ouisie Shapiro

In these moving essays, children tell their stories of what it is like to live with a sibling who has autism.
A Very Important Day

Maggie Rugg Herold

Two-hundred nineteen people from thirty-two different countries make their way to downtown New York in a snowstorm to be sworn in as citizens of the United States.
Away

Emil Sher

A gentle tale told entirely through sticky notes between a mother and daughter as the girl's departure for her first summer camp draws near demonstrates how love can be found even in scribbled messages and other unlikely places.
Babu's Song

Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen

In Tanzania, Bernardi's mute grandfather makes him a wonderful music box and then helps him realize his dream of owning a soccer ball and going to school.