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 Race & Culture:
Bicultural/Multicultural
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Darius the Great is Not Okay
Adib Khorram
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian -- half, his mom's side -- and his first ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they're spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city's skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush the original Farsi version of his name -- and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Adib Khorram's brilliant debut is for anyone who's ever felt not good enough then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.
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Digging Up Trouble (Amy Hodgepodge, #6)
Kim Wayans and Kevin Knotts
When Amy's fourth-grade class must come up with a "green" project, they learn about community activism and fund-raising from Amy's visiting Grandmother Hodges as they raise money to help revitalize a community garden.
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Drawn Together
Minh Lê
A boy and his grandfather cross a language and cultural barrier using their shared love of art, storytelling, and fantasy.
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Dumpling Soup
Jama Kim Rattigan
A young Asian American girl living in Hawaii tries to make dumplings for her family's New Year's celebration.
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Either the Beginning or the End of the World
Terry Farish
For sixteen years, it's been just Sofie and her father, living on the New Hampshire coast. Her Cambodian immigrant mother has floated in and out of her life, leaving Sofie with a fierce bitterness toward her-and a longing she wishes she could outgrow. "To me she is as unreliable as the wind." Then she meets Luke, an army medic back from Afghanistan, and the pull between them is as strong as the current of the rushing Piscataqua River. But Luke is still plagued by the trauma of war, as if he's lost with the ghosts in his past. Sofie's dad orders her to stay away; it may be the first time she has ever disobeyed him. "A ghost can't love you." When Sofie is forced to stay with her mother and grandmother while her dad's away, she is confronted with their memories of the ruthless Khmer Rouge, a war-torn countryside, and deeds of heartbreaking human devotion. "I don't want you for ancestors. I don't want that story." As Sofie and Luke navigate a forbidden landscape, they discover they both have their secrets, their scars, their wars. Together, they are dangerous. Together, they'll discover what extraordinary acts love can demand.
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Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa
Micol Ostow
Forced to stay with her mother in Puerto Rico for weeks after her grandmother's funeral, half-Jewish Emily, who has just graduated from a Westchester, New York, high school, does not find it easy to connect with her Puerto Rican heritage and relatives she had never met.
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Everything You Need to Know about Being a Biracial / Biethnic Teen
Renea D. Nash
This book for children and teenagers discusses what it means to be biracial or biethnic and what it means to find one's own identity.
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Every Year on Your Birthday
Rose A. Lewis
Each year on the birthday of her adopted Chinese daughter, a mother recalls the moments they have shared, from the first toy to the friends left behind in China.
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Extra Innings
Robert Newton Peck
After a tragic airplane crash that claims the lives of most of his family, sixteen-year-old Tate goes to live with his wealthy great-grandfather and his adopted black great-aunt Vidalia and he finds unexpected solace in the stories of her childhood spent travelling with a Depression-era Negro baseball team.
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Families
Ann Morris
A simple explanation of families, how they function, how they are different, and how they are alike.
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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.
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Far from the Tree
Robin Benway
Grace, adopted at birth, is raised as an only child. At sixteen she's just put her own baby up for adoption, and now is looking for her biological family. She discovers Maya, her loudmouthed younger bio sister who was also adopted; and Joaquin, their stoic older bio brother, who has no interest in bonding over their shared biological mother after seventeen years in the foster care system. Grace struggles between cautious joy at having found them, and the true meaning of family in all its forms.
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For a Muse of Fire
Heidi Heilig
Jetta, a teen who possesses secret, forbidden powers, must gain access to a hidden spring and negotiate a world roiling with intrigue and the beginnings of war.
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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.
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Freddie Ramos Makes a Splash
Jacqueline Jules
Freddie Ramos uses his super powers to give himself courage to learn how to swim and to deal with a new neighbor who is a bully.
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Freddie Ramos Rules New York
Jacqueline Jules
On a visit to New York City to see Uncle Jorge, Freddie brings his special sneakers which give him super speed but are becoming too small for his growing feet.
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Freddie Ramos Springs into Action
Jacqueline Jules
When a very important inventor needs rescuing, Freddie Ramos activates his special sneakers and becomes a superhero.
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Freddie Ramos Stomps the Snow
Jacqueline Jules
When a freak spring blizzard buries Starwood Park, Freddie works with Mr. Vaslov to clear the sidewalks using a new invention--Zapato Power snowshoes. But not even the snow can stop a thief from causing trouble in the neighborhood. Can Freddie solve the case, even if it means helping Erika, the Starwood Park bully?
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Freddie Ramos Takes Off
Jacqueline Jules
Freddie finds a mysterious package outside his apartment containing sneakers that allow him to run faster than a train, and inspire him to perform heroic deeds.
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Freddie Ramos Zooms to the Rescue
Jacqueline Jules
A very unusual squirrel is spotted in and around Starwood Elementary School, and when Freddie uses his Zapato Power to chase it, he finds more than one opportunity to be a hero.
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Freedom Summer: the 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
Susan Goldman Rubin
An account of the civil rights crusade in Mississippi 50 years ago that brought on shocking violence and the beginning of a new political order.
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Free to Be...You and Me
Marlo Thomas
This is the book we all know and love by Marlo Thomas and her friends—brought to new life with brand new illustrations to captivate and inspire a new generation of readers on a journey of the heart. Whether you are opening Free to Be . . . You and Me for the first time or the one hundredth time you will be engaged and transformed by this newly beautifully illustrated compilation of inspirational stories, songs, and poems. The sentiments of thirty-five years ago are as relevant today as when this book was published. Celebrating individuality and challenging stereotypes empowers both children and adults with the freedom to be who they want to be and to have compassion and empathy for others who may be different. Working closely with Marlo and co-creator Carole Hart, Peter H. Reynolds, the New York Times Best Selling Children’s Book Author/Illustrator, conjured his whimsical drawings throughout the book bringing a new sense of unity and warmth to the pages. You will find yourself marveling at the illustrations, nodding in agreement with the stories and poems, and singing the words to all the classic songs! It is wonderful that the thoughts, ideas, and emotions the creators envisioned so many years ago can still have a magical effect on children today.
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Girls for Breakfast
David Yoo
Nick Park, about to graduate from high school, looks back on his life in upscale Renfield, Connecticut, and wonders how much being the only Asian American in his school affected his thwarted quest for popularity and a girlfriend.
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Goyangi Means Cat
Christine McDonnell
An understanding cat helps a young Korean girl adjust to her new home in America.
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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.