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:
Biracial/Multiracial
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The Hello, Goodbye Window
Norton Juster
A little girl describes the magic kitchen window in her grandparents' home.
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The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4)
Rick Riordan
Greek and Roman demigods from the Prophecy of Seven must work together to seal the Doors of Death--and help Percy and Annabeth escape the Underworld in the process
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The House You Pass on the Way
Jacqueline Woodson
When thirteen-year-old Staggerlee, the daughter of a racially mixed marriage, spends a summer with her cousin Trout, she begins to question her sexuality to Trout and catches a glimpse of her possible future self. Thirteen-year-old Staggerlee used to be called Evangeline, but she took on a fiercer name. She's always been different--set apart by the tragic deaths of her grandparents in an anti-civil rights bombing, by her parents' interracial marriage, and by her family's retreat from the world. This summer she has a new reason to feel set apart--her confused longing for her friend Hazel. When cousin Trout comes to stay, she gives Staggerlee a first glimpse of her possible future selves and the world beyond childhood.
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The Land
Mildred D. Taylor
After the Civil War, Paul, the son of a white father and a black mother, finds himself caught between the two worlds of colored folks and white folks as he pursues his dream of owning land of his own.
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The Latte Rebellion
Sarah Jamila Stevenson
When high school senior Asha Jamison is called a "towel head" at a pool party, she and her best friend Carey start a club to raise awareness of mixed-race students that soon sweeps the country, but the hubbub puts her Ivy League dreams, friendship, and beliefs to the test.
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The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1)
Rick Riordan
Jason, Piper, and Leo, three students from a school for "bad kids," find themselves at Camp Half-Blood, where they learn that they are demigods and begin a quest to free Hera, who has been imprisoned by Mother Earth herself.
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The Lottery Plus One
Emma Donoghue
Once upon a time, two couples with Jamaican, Mohawk, Indian, and Scottish ethnic roots won the lottery and bought a big house where all of them, four adults and seven adopted and biological children, could live together in harmony--but change is inevitable, especially when a disagreeable grandfather comes to stay.
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The Lotterys Plus One
Emma Donoghue
Once upon a time, two couples with Jamaican, Mohawk, Indian, and Scottish ethnic roots won the lottery and bought a big house where all of them, four adults and seven adopted and biological children, could live together in harmony--but change is inevitable, especially when a disagreeable grandfather comes to stay.
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The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3)
Rick Riordan
Uniting with Jason, Piper, and Leo after the dangerous quest in "The Son of Neptune," Percy, Hazel, and Frank wonder who will be chosen to fulfill the Prophecy of Seven, completing their group's number, and sail with them to an ancient land to find the mysterious Doors of Death.
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The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher
Dana Alison Levy
Relates the adventures of a family with two fathers, four adopted boys, and a variety of pets as they make their way through a school year, Kindergarten through sixth grade, and deal with a grumpy new neighbor.
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The Music of What Happens
Bill Konigsberg
It is summer in Phoenix, and seventeen-year-old Maximo offers to help Jordan, a fellow student in high school, with the food truck that belonged to Jordan's deceased father, and which may be the only thing standing between homelessness for Jordan and his mom; the boys are strongly attracted to each other, but as their romance develops it is threatened by the secrets they are hiding--and by the racism and homophobia of those around them.
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The Other Half of My Heart
Sundee Tucker Frazier
Twin daughters of interracial parents, eleven-year-olds Keira and Minna have very different skin tones and personalities, but it is not until their African American grandmother enters them in the Miss Black Pearl Pre-Teen competition in North Carolina that red-haired and pale-skinned Minna realizes what life in their small town in the Pacific Northwest has been like for her more outgoing, darker-skinned sister.
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The Princess and the Pony
Kate Beaton
Princess Pinecone would like a real war horse for her birthday, instead of which she gets a plump, cute pony--but sometimes cuteness can be a kind of weapon, especially in a fight with dodgeballs and spitballs and hairballs and squareballs.
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The Pros of Cons
Allison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, and Michelle Schusterman
Phoebe Byrd, Vanessa Montoya-O'Callaghan, and Callie Buchannan are three teenagers with very different interests and somewhat different problems, but today they are all in Orlando to attend different conventions/competitions--and when a crazy mix-up in the hotel lobby brings the three girls together, they form an unlikely friendship against the chaotic background of the Orlando convention scene.
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The Red Pyramid
Rick Riordan
Brilliant Egyptologist Dr. Julius Kane accidentally unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes the doctor to oblivion and forces his two children to embark on a dangerous journey, bringing them closer to the truth about their family and its links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.
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The Red Pyramid: The Graphic Novel
Rick Riordan
Siblings Sadie and Carter Kane discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them?Set?has his sights on them. to Stop him, the duo embarks on a dangerous journey across the globe, one that brings Carter and Sadie ever closer to the truth about their family and its connection to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs. The heart-stopping action and magic explode off the page in The Red Pyramid, The Graphic Novel, based on the worldwise best-selling novel by Rick Riordan.
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The Remember Balloons
Jessie Oliveros
James has a bunch of balloons, each of which holds a special memory, but as his grandfather ages and loses his own balloons, James discovers that he is gaining new ones.
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There's Only One of Me!
Pat Hutchins
Daughter Sister Half-sister Stepdaughter Stepsister Cousin Niece Granddaughter Great-Granddaughter There are so many things to be when the relatives are coming to your birthday party But sometimes the best thing of all is to be a birthday girl. Oh, happy birthday
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The Road to Paris
Nikki Grimes
Inconsolable at being separated from her older brother, eight-year-old Paris is apprehensive about her new foster family but just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life-changing decision.
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The Rope Walk: A Novel
Carrie Brown
At her tenth birthday party, Alice, a motherless young girl protected by her family, encounters two people that change her life--Theo, a biracial boy from New York City, and Kenneth, an artist suffering from the ravages of AIDS.
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The Secret's Out (Amy Hodgepodge, #5)
Kim Wayans Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Can a secret break up the friendship of five fourth-grade girls and prevent them from finishing an art project?
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The Serpent's Shadow
Rick Riordan
Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sadie Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all. Unfortunately, the magicians of the House of Life are on the brink of civil war, the gods are divided, and the young initiates of Brooklyn House stand almost alone against the forces of chaos. The Kanes' only hope is an ancient spell that might turn the serpent's own shadow into a weapon, but the magic has been lost for a millennia. To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the murderous ghost of a powerful magician who might be able to lead them to the serpent's shadow...or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld.
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The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere, #2)
Heidi Heilig
Nix has spent her whole life journeying to places both real and imagined aboard her time-traveling father's ship. And now it's finally time for her to take the helm. Her father has given up his obsession to save her mother -- and possibly erase Nix's existence -- and Nix's future lies bright before her. Until she learns that she is destined to lose the one she loves. But her relationship with Kash -- best friend, thief, charmer extraordinaire -- is only just beginning. How can she bear to lose him? How can she bear to become as adrift and alone as her father? Desperate to change her fate, Nix takes her crew to a mythical utopia to meet another Navigator who promises to teach her how to manipulate time. But everything in this utopia is constantly changing, and nothing is what it seems -- not even her relationship with Kash. Nix must grapple with whether anyone can escape her destiny, her history, her choices.
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The Skin You Live In
Michael Tyler
Rhyming text and illustrations celebrate being content with the skin in which one lives, whatever that skin might be.
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The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2)
Rick Riordan
Demigod Percy Jackson, still with no memory, and his new friends from Camp Jupiter, Hazel and Frank, go on a quest to free Death, but their bigger task is to unite the Greek and Roman camps so that the Prophecy of Seven can be fulfilled.