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:
Legal Guardianship / Kinship Care
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Monday is One Day
Arthur A. Levine
A rhyming countdown of the days of the week as a father and child find ways to spend time together while waiting for the weekend.
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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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Mountains to Climb
Richard M. Wainwright
Roberto spends two years in the U.S. with his one-eyed llama and overcomes prejudice against him and two physically disabled students.
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My Name is Blessing
Eric Walters
Based on the life of a real boy, this warm-hearted, beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Baraka, a young Kenyan boy with a physical disability. Baraka and eight cousins live with their grandmother. She gives them boundless love, but there is never enough money or food, and life is hard--love doesn't feed hungry stomachs or clothe growing bodies, or school keen minds. Baraka is too young, and, with his disability, needs too much, and she is too old. A difficult choice must be made, and grandmother and grandchild set off on a journey to see if there is a place at the orphanage for Baraka. The story begins by looking at Baraka's physical disability as a misfortune, but ends by looking beyond the disability, to his great heart and spirit, and the blessings he brings.
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Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story
Nora Raleigh Baskin
The morning of September 11, 2001, was warm, clear and perfect. Until 8:46 a.m when a plane struck the World Trade Center. But that has not happened yet.`
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Ninth Ward
Jewell Parker Rhodes
In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.
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No Mirrors in My Nana's House
Ysaye M. Barnwell
A girl discovers the beauty in herself by looking into her Nana's eyes.
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Nora's Ark
Natalie Kinsey-Warnock
This heartwarming story by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock is based on a real-life event: the Vermont Flood of 1927. Watercolors by Caldecott Medal-winning artist Emily Arnold McCully capture both the sweeping drama of the flood and the comfort of a cozy kitchen filled with friends, neighbors, and good cheer.
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Now Playing: Stoner & Spaz II
Ronald Koertge
High schooler Ben Bancroft, a budding filmmaker with cerebral palsy, struggles to understand his relationship with drug-addict Colleen while he explores a new friendship with A.J., who shares his obsession with movies and makes a good impression on Ben's grandmother.
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Odd & True
Cat Winters
Trudchen grew up hearing Odette’s stories of their monster-slaying mother and a magician’s curse. But now that Tru’s older, she’s starting to wonder if her older sister’s tales were just comforting lies, especially because there’s nothing fantastic about her own life—permanently disabled and in constant pain from childhood polio. In 1909, after a two-year absence, Od reappears with a suitcase supposedly full of weapons and a promise to rescue Tru from the monsters on their way to attack her. But it’s Od who seems haunted by something. And when the sisters’ search for their mother leads them to a face-off with the Leeds Devil, a nightmarish beast that’s wreaking havoc in the Mid-Atlantic states, Tru discovers the peculiar possibility that she and her sister—despite their dark pasts and ordinary appearances—might, indeed, have magic after all.
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Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families
Gigi Kaeser and Peggy Gillespie
Based on an award-winning photo exhibit, this collection of interviews and photographs documents the feelings and experiences of "thirty-nine families who have bridged the racial divide through interracial marriage or adoption."
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On a Sunbeam
Tillie Walden
In two interwoven timelines, a ragtag crew travels to the deepest reaches of space, rebuilding beautiful, broken structures to piece the past together; and two girls meet in boarding school and fall deeply in love, only to learn the pain of loss.
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One Family
George Shannon
A family can be many things, in this story that introduces numbered groups from one to ten.
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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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Oranges on Golden Mountain
Elizabeth Partridge
Being sent from China to work with his uncle on Golden Mountain, Jo Lee's mother gives him words of encouragement to see him through the difficult transition to his new life in a new world in late-nineteenth-century California.
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Oskar and the Eight Blessings
Tanya Simon and Richard Simon
A young Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany arrives in New York City on the seventh night of Hanukkah and receives small acts of kindness while exploring the city.
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Our Gracie Aunt
Jacqueline Woodson
When a brother and sister are taken to stay with their mother's sister because their mother neglects them, they wonder if they will see their mother again.
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Over the River
Sharelle Byars Moranville
In 1947, after the war, Willa Mae's father returns to the Illinois town where she has lived with her maternal grandparents for the last five of her eleven years, and Willa Mae finds herself struggling to understand old family tensions and secrets.
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Pink Chameleon
Fiona Dunbar
Rorie and Elsie live happily with their slightly eccentric parents, until one day their parents disappear. Rorie and Elsie are put in the guardianship of their sour uncle and aunt in their boarding school. When they can take no more the girls run away in search of their parents and discover that their adventure has only just begun.
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Playing Without the Ball
Rich Wallace
Feeling abandoned by his parents, who have gone their separate ways and left him behind in a small Pennsylvania town, seventeen-year-old Jay finds hope for the future in a church-sponsored basketball team and a female friend.
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Punkzilla
Adam Rapp
"Punkzilla" is on a mission to see his older brother "P", before "P" dies of cancer. Still buzzing from his last hit of meth, he embarks on a days-long trip from Portland, Ore. to Memphis, Tenn., writing letters to his family and friends. Along the way, he sees a sketchier side of America and worries if he will make it to see his brother in time.
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Rage: A Love Story
Julie Anne Peters
At the end of high school, Johanna finally begins dating the girl she has loved from afar, but Reeve is as much trouble as she claims to be as she and her twin brother damage Johanna's self-esteem, friendships, and already precarious relationship with her sister.
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Rain Reign
Ann M. Martin
Struggling with Asperger's, Rose shares a bond with her beloved dog, but when the dog goes missing during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her routines in order to search for her pet.
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Raven's Gate
Anthony Horowitz
Sent to live in a foster home in a remote Yorkshire village, Matt, a troubled fourteen-year-old English boy, uncovers an evil plot involving witchcraft and the site of an ancient stone circle.
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Reason to Breathe
Rebecca Donovan
In the affluent town of Weslyn, Connecticut, where most people worry about what to be seen in and who to be seen with, Emma Thomas would rather not be seen at all. She's more concerned with feigning perfection- pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises, not wanting anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is. Without expecting it, she finds love. It challenges her to recognize her own worth- at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she's desperate to hide.