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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Legal Guardianship / Kinship Care

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Itch

Michelle D. Kwasney

In 1968, after the death of her beloved Gramps, Delores "Itch" Colchester and her grandmother move from Florida to an Ohio trailer park, where she meets new people and, when she learns that a friend is being abused by her mother, tries her best to emulate her plain-spoken grandfather.
I Totally Funniest: A Middle School Story (I Funny #3)

James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

Jamie Grimm is back and better than ever. After scoring big on national TV in the semifinals contest, everyone back home is jumping on the Jamie Grimm bandwagon, and all the attention might be going to his head. Not only are his friendships starting to suffer, but the pressure of coming up with his best material ever for the ultimate standup act to snag the final win in Hollywood is pushing Jamie to the brink. Suddenly, life isn't looking very funny anymore. Can Jamie take the grand prize without pushing away his fans, friends and family?
Journey

Patricia MacLachlan

Left by their mother with their grandparents, two children feel as if their past has been erased until Grandfather finds a way to restore it to them.
Jubilee

Patricia Reilly Giff

Judith stopped talking long ago when Mom left her in the care of beloved Aunt Cora. Going back into a regular fifth-grade classroom won't be easy, but she has her Dog and new friend who will help her through.
Julián is a Mermaid

Jessica Love

While riding the subway home from the pool with his abuela one day, Julián notices three women spectacularly dressed up. Their hair billows in brilliant hues, their dresses end in fishtails, and their joy fills the train car. When Julián gets home, daydreaming of the magic he's seen, all he can think about is dressing up just like the ladies in his own fabulous mermaid costume: a butter-yellow curtain for his tail, the fronds of a potted fern for his headdress. But what will Abuela think about the mess he makes -- and even more importantly, what will she think about how Julián sees himself?
Kele's Secret

Tololwa Marti Mollel

Eggs mark the spot - the secret spot where Kele the chicken has been laying. Light hearted game of detective in this account of a boy's adventure on his grandmother's coffee farm in Tanzania.
King of the Screwups

K.L. Going

After getting in trouble yet again, popular high school senior Liam, who never seems to live up to his wealthy father's expectations, is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay "glam-rocker" uncle.
Last Stop on Market Street

Matt de la Peña

CJ begins his weekly bus journey around the city with disappointment and dissatisfaction, wondering why he and his family can't drive a car like his friends. Through energy and encouragement, CJ's nana helps him see the beauty and fun in their routine.
Let's Talk About Living with a Grandparent

Susan Kent

Discusses various reasons for living with a grandparent, the benefits of such an arrangement, and how to help out at home.
Liberty

Kirby Larson

In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.
Lorraine

Ketch Secor

Pa Paw and Lorraine always lift their spirits by playing music together, but their instruments are missing when a fearsome storm hits the Tennessee hills.
Losers Bracket

Chris Crutcher

When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie's swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew and finally get him into a safe home.
Lots of Grandparents

Shelly Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly

Color photographs show grandparents of different ages, ethnic groups, shapes, and sizes sharing happy times with grandchildren.
Love Is a Family

Roma Downey

Lily is worried that she and her mother will be the strangest family at the Family Fun Night.
Lucky Beans

Becky Birtha

During the Great Depression, Marshall, an African American boy, uses lessons learned in arithmetic class and guidance from his mother to figure out how many beans are in a jar in order to win her a new sewing machine in a contest.
Lucky Strikes

Louis Bayard

Set in Depression Era Virginia, this is the story of orphaned Amelia and her struggle to keep her siblings together.
Lucy Rose, Here's the Thing About Me

Kelly Katy

Eight-year-old Lucy Rose keeps a diary of her first year in Washington, D.C., her home since her parents' separation, where she spends time with her grandparents, makes new friends, and longs to convince her teacher to let her take care of the class pet during a holiday.
Lum

Libby Ware

Lum has always been on the outside. At eight, she was diagnosed with what we now call an intersex condition and is told she can't expect to marry. Now, at thirty-three, she has no home of her own but is shuttled from one relative's house to another -- valued for her skills, but never treated like a true member of the family. Everything is turned upside down, however, when the Blue Ridge Parkway is slated to come through her family's farmland. As people take sides in the fight, the community begins to tear apart -- culminating in an act of violence and subsequent betrayal by opponents of the new road. However, the Parkway brings opportunities as well as loss.
Making Toast: A Family Story

Roger Rosenblatt

When his daughter, Amy, collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition, Rosenblatt and his wife leave their home on Long Island to move in with their son-in-law and their three young grandchildren. He peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create a testament to familial love.
Mama, Across the Sea

Alex Godard

Although she loves the sunny island where she lives with her grandparents, Cecile longs to see her mother again.
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.
Maniac Magee

Jerry Spinelli

After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
Merrow

Ananda Braxton-Smith

Enduring whispers about her absent mother's alleged merrow origins after her father drowns, twelve-year-old Neen questions her identity as she becomes increasingly torn between the worlds of the sea and her island home.
Midnight Without a Moon

Linda Williams Jackson

Rose Lee Carter, a thirteen-year-old African-American girl, dreams of life beyond the Mississippi cotton fields during the summer of 1955, but when Emmett Till is murdered and his killers are unjustly acquitted, Rose is torn between seeking her destiny outside of Mississippi or staying and being a part of an important movement.
Milly, Molly and Different Dads

Gill Pittar

Milly and Molly learn how different dads can be. The story teaches about the diversity and individual differences and to accept everyone inspite of it.