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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My Mom Is a Foreigner, But Not to Me
Julianne Moore
A heartwarming new picture book about cultural diversity and the love of mums from the bestselling author and award-winning actress Julianne Moore!
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My Two Grandads
Floella Benjamin
Aston's granddad Harry plays the trumpet in a brass band, while Grandad Roy plays the steel drum in a steel band. But only one band can play at Aston's summer fair at school...Which band should Aston choose? Or can he find a way to bring everyone together?
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My Two Grannies
Floella Benjamin
When her two grannies want to eat different meals and tell their own stories, how can Alvina make everyone happy?
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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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No Tildes on Tuesday
Cherrye S. Vasquez
Isabella never wanted to learn to speak Spanish. But when her parents announce that they are moving the family to a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood, Isabella becomes desperately afraid that she won't be able to fit in and grudgingly agrees to start Spanish lessons with her abuela. But the lessons aren't as easy as she thought they would be. Abuela is a strict teacher and the words are a lot more difficult to memorize than Isabella thought they would be, so at the goading of her best friend she decides to put a stop to them. Through a runaway adventure, a visit to her father in the hospital, and an introduction to a new kind of friend, Isabella comes to realize that Spanish may not be as bad as she thought, and that being able to communicate with people who share her heritage could be invaluable. Follow Isabella and author Cherrye Vasquez on a challenging journey of culture, family, and communication that just might change your mind about having No Tildes on Tuesday.
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Odd One out
Nic Stone
High school juniors and best friends Courtney and Jupe, and new sophomore Rae, explore their sexuality and their budding attractions for one another.
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Off-Color
Janet McDonald
Fifteen-year-old Cameron living with her single mother in Brooklyn finds her search for identity further challenged when she discovers that she is the product of a biracial relationship.
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One Man Guy
Michael Barakiva Barakiva
Alek Khederian should have guessed something was wrong when his parents took him to a restaurant. Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Why bother, when their home cooking is far superior to anything these Americans could come up with? Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek's parents announce that he'll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshmen year of high school. He never could've predicted that he'd meet someone like Ethan. Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. When Ethan gets Alek to cut school and go to a Rufus Wainwright concert in New York City's Central Park, Alek embarks on his first adventure outside the confines of his suburban New Jersey existence. He can't believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend--he's barely ever had a girlfriend--but maybe it's time to think again. Michael Barakiva's One Man Guy is a romantic, moving, laugh-out-loud-funny story about what happens when one person cracks open your world and helps you see everything--and, most of all, yourself--like you never have before.
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Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices
Mitali Perkins
Let's face it: Talking about race can be difficult. It's a slippery subject, rife with as many perspectives as there are people in the world. But laughter gets us talking. It has the power to break down barriers and draw us closer together. In Open Mic, acclaimed author and speaker Mitali Perkins invites us to listen in as ten authors for young adults-some familiar, some new-step up to the mic and share their stories about what it's like growing up between cultures.
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Paper Wishes
Lois Sepahban
Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family's life on Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It's 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American, which means that the government says they must leave their home by the sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert. Manami is sad to go, but even worse is that they are going to have to give her and her grandfather's dog, Yujiin, to a neighbor to take care of. Manami decides to sneak Yujiin under her coat and gets as far as the mainland before she is caught and forced to abandon Yujiin. She and her grandfather are devastated, but Manami clings to the hope that somehow Yujiin will find his way to the camp and make her family whole again. It isn't until she finds a way to let go of her guilt that Manami can reclaim the piece of herself that she left behind and accept all that has happened to her family.
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Pashmina
Nidhi Chanani
Priyanka Das has so many unanswered questions: Why did her mother abandon her home in India years ago? What was it like there? And most importantly, who is her father, and why did her mom leave him behind? But Pri's mom avoids these questions and the topic of India is permanently closed. For Pri, her mother's homeland can only exist in her imagination. That is, until she find a mysterious pashmina tucked away in a forgotten suitcase. When she wraps herself in it, she is transported to a place more vivid and colorful than any guidebook or Bollywood film.
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Playing Games (Amy Hodgepodge, #4)
Kim Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Amy realizes her dream of playing sports when she joins the basketball league, and secret practices with Rusty improve her skills but her friends, believing she still plays badly, will not pass her the ball.
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Race, Religion, and Law in Colonial India: Trials of an Interracial Family
Chandra Mallampalli
Through a landmark court case in mid-nineteenth-century colonial India, this book investigates hierarchy and racial difference.
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Rebecca's Journey Home
Brynn Olenberg Sugarman
Mr. and Mrs. Stein and their young sons Gabe and Jacob adopt a baby girl from Vietnam.
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Rock & Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story
Sebastian Robertson
Canadian guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson is known mainly for his central role in the musical group the Band. But how did he become one of Rolling Stone's top 100 guitarists of all time? Written by his son, Sebastian, this is the story of a rock-and-roll legend's journey through music, beginning when he was taught to play guitar at nine years old on a Native American reservation. Rock and Roll Highway is the story of a young person's passion, drive, and determination to follow his dream.
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Saffron Ice Cream
Rashin Kheiriyeh
Rashin is an Iranian immigrant girl living in New York, excited by her first trip to Coney Island, and fascinated by the differences in the beach customs between her native Iran and her new home--but she misses the saffron flavored ice cream that she used to eat.
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Saints and Misfits
S. K. Ali
Fifteen-year-old Janna Yusuf, a Flannery O'Connor-obsessed book nerd and the daughter of the only divorced mother at their mosque, tries to make sense of the events that follow when her best friend's cousin--a holy star in the Muslim community--attempts to assault her at the end of sophomore year.
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Shanghai Messenger
Andrea Cheng
A free-verse novel about eleven-year-old Xiao Mei's visit with her extended family in China, where the Chinese-American girl finds many differences but also the similarities that bind a family together.
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Shy Mama's Halloween
Anne Broyles
For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, newly arrived to this country, Halloween seems a wonderfully strange and exciting holiday. They enlist Mrs. Rumanski and her midnight-blue Singer sewing machine in the apartment downstairs to help with their costumes, and Papa agrees to take them out trick-or-treating. But Papa comes home sick that evening, and it looks as though the children will be watching the trick or treating from the upstairs window. Mama, who is frightened by so much in this new country, especially the thought of ghosts and goblins on the streets, surprises them all when she rises to the occasion and takes her young princess, witch, devil, and clown down the stairs and out into the night. As they go from house to house, they find that everyone along the street is friendly. No one seems to care that their "Thank yous" are said with an accent, or that Mama, in her babushka, can speak only a few words of English. For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, it is their first sense of belonging in their new country, of savoring the fun and magic of Halloween and the generosity of strangers. For Mama, it is a much greater step out into a new world, led by her children.
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Six of Crows
Leigh Bardugo
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price-and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone... A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction-if they don't kill each other first.
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Sliding into Home
Nina Vincent
Thirteen-year-old Flip Simpson's ideal life just began to crumble. His adoptive parents are splitting up. He's moving from the only home he's ever known. He has to leave before his baseball team finishes the playoffs. And his little sister is his only companion. Flip folds under the weight of so much loss until he meets Ricki, an indigenous classmate who loves baseball and gives Flip a sense of pride in his Mayan roots, and Zorba, an eccentric houseboat dweller who is a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Willy Wonka. Zorba possesses an uncanny ability to sense Flip's fears and doubts and inspires the courage Flip needs to overcome both. Just as life begins to look up, Flip is faced with the challenge of a racist bully. Steve picks at the wounds Flip has tried so hard to mend and brings to the surface questions Flip didn't know he had about race, culture and belonging. Will Flip rise to the challenge and face Steve, or retreat into himself once again?
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Starfish
Akemi Dawn Bowman
Kiko Himura yearns to escape the toxic relationship with her mother by getting into her dream art school, but when things do not work out as she hoped Kiko jumps at the opportunity to tour art schools with her childhood friend, learning life-changing truths about herself and her past along the way.
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Tash Hearts Tolstoy
Kathryn Ormsbee
Fame and success come at a cost for Natasha "Tash" Zelenka when she creates the web series "Unhappy Families," a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina--written by Tash's eternal love Leo Tolstoy.
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Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel
Sara Farizan
High school junior Leila's Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates at Armstead Academy, and if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual, so she struggles to sort out her growing feelings by confiding in her old friends.
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The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan
After her mother's suicide, grief-stricken Leigh Sanders travels to Taiwan to stay with grandparents she never met, determined to find her mother who she believes turned into a bird.