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
-
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?
Kathleen Collins
Now available in Ecco's Art of the Story series: a never-before-published collection of stories from a brilliant yet little known African American artist and filmmaker-a contemporary of revered writers including Toni Cade Bambara, Laurie Colwin, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Grace Paley-whose prescient work has recently resurfaced to wide acclaim. Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins's stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues-race, gender, family, and sexuality-that shape the ordinary moments in our lives. In "The Uncle," a young girl who idolizes her handsome uncle and his beautiful wife makes a haunting discovery about their lives. In "Only Once," a woman reminisces about her charming daredevil of a lover and his ultimate-and final-act of foolishness. Collins's work seamlessly integrates the African-American experience in her characters' lives, creating rich, devastatingly familiar, full-bodied men, women, and children who transcend the symbolic, penetrating both the reader's head and heart. Both contemporary and timeless, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love' is a major addition to the literary canon, and is sure to earn Kathleen Collins the widespread recognition she is long overdue.
-
What Momma Left Me
Renée Watson
After the death of their mother, thirteen-year-old Serenity Evans and her younger brother go to live with their grandparents, who try to keep them safe from bad influences and help them come to terms with what has happened to their family. Includes recipe for red velvet cake.
-
When Dad Killed Mom
Julius Lester
When Jenna and Jeremey's father kills their artistic mother, they struggle to slowly rebuild a functioning family.
-
When Jessie Came Across the Sea
Amy Hest
When a young girl from a poor eastern European village learns that she must leave her beloved grandmother for a new life - and a new love - in America, they both feel that their hearts will break. The sure and inspired narrative by award-winning author Amy Hest is paired with paintings by P.J. Lynch that glow with warmth and carefully observed detail, creating an unforgettable tribute to the immigrant experience.
-
Who's in a Family?
Robert Skutch
Who is in a family, and in particular, who is in your family? Chances are, your family is unique, like no one else's, and that's just fine!
-
Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories
Lore Segal
Young Mole and his grandmother live together and get along well enough most of the time, but in each of these four stories there is an exception to the rule
-
Wild Life
Cynthia C. DeFelice
When twelve-year-old Eric's parents are deployed to Iraq, he goes to live with grandparents he hardly knows in a small town in North Dakota, but his grandfather's hostility and the threat of losing the dog he has rescued are too much and Eric runs away.
-
Wintering Well
Lea Wait
Twelve-year-old Will Ames and his sister Cassie go to stay with their sister in nearby Wiscasset, Maine, after a disabling accident ruins Will's plans for a career in farming.
-
Witches of Ash and Ruin
E. Latimer
Told in multiple voices, seventeen-year-olds Dayna Walsh and Meiner King, witches from rival covens, team up in a small Irish town to seek a serial killer with motives enmeshed in a web of magic and gods.
-
You Can't See the Elephants
Susan Kreller and Elizabeth Gaffney
When she suspects that her young neighbors are being abused by their father, one brave girl takes a stand to protect them.