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
-
Amina's Voice
Hena Khan
A Pakistani-American Muslim girl struggles to stay true to her family's vibrant culture while simultaneously blending in at school after tragedy strikes her community.
-
A Most Unusual Day
Sydra Mallery
Something rather extraordinary is happening in Caroline’s life today...her family is adopting a new baby sister! A warm and loving story about school, family, siblings, and adoption, for anyone eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new sibling.
-
An African Princess
Lyra Edmonds
Lyra and her parents go to the Caribbean to visit Taunte May, who reminds her that her family tree is full of princesses from Africa and around the world.
-
And Then There Were Four
Nancy Werlin
When five high school students are brought together under mysterious circumstances, they begin to piece together a theory that their parents are working together to kill them all.
-
Anna Hibiscus
Atinuke .
Anna Hibiscus, who lives in Africa with her whole family, loves to splash in the sea and have parties for her aunties, but Anna would love to see snow.
-
A Place to Call Home
Jackie French Koller
Biracial Anna, 15, is a strong character in search of love & roots following sexual abuse & rejection from her own family. Caring for her two younger siblings after their unreliable mother abandons them, fifteen-year-old Anna discovers the difficulties of trying to be a parent.
-
Armond Goes to a Party: A Book about Asperger's and Friendship
Nancy Carlson
Armond doesn't want to go to Felicia's birthday party. Parties are noisy, disorganized, and smelly--all things that are hard for a kid with Asperger's. Worst of all is socializing with other kids. But with the support of Felicia and her mom, good friends who know how to help him, he not only gets through the party, but also has fun. When his mom picks him up, Armond admits the party was not easy, but he feels good that he faced the challenge--and that he's a good friend.
-
A Very Important Day
Maggie Rugg Herold
Two-hundred nineteen people from thirty-two different countries make their way to downtown New York in a snowstorm to be sworn in as citizens of the United States.
-
Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope
Nikki Grimes
When David asks his mother about the man on television, she tells him the story of Barack Obama, discussing his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, his parents' divorce, and his desire to help others.
-
Beyoncé: Singer-Songwriter, Actress, and Record Producer
Chuck Bednar
Presents the life and career of the pop singer, from her childhood and early career with Destiny's Child to her solo career in music and motion pictures.
-
Billie of Fish House Lane
Meredith Sue Willis
A twelve-year-old girl attempts to understand and accept her affluent, white cousin while living in a multiracial, eccentric family.
-
Billy and Belle
Sarah Garland
A newborn baby and the exciting confusion of Pet Day at school combine to make a very special day for Billy and Belle.
-
Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America
Ibi Zoboi
Edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi and featuring some of the most acclaimed best-selling black authors writing for teens today - Black Enough is an essential collection of captivating stories about what it's like to be young and black in America.
-
Black is Brown is Tan
Arnold Adoff
Describes in verse a family with a brown-skinned mother, white-skinned father, two children, and their various relatives.
-
Black Means…
Barney Grossman
Records the feelings of New York elementary school children toward the word "black."
-
Blackout
John Rocco
When a busy family's activities come to a halt because of a blackout, they find they enjoy spending time together and not being too busy for once.
-
Black, White and Tan
Nicole C. Mullen
Nicole C. Mullen’s book reminds children “Together we are beautiful!” God loves all the kids in his family―no matter what color they are.
-
Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self
Rebecca Walker
In a memoir about the power of race to share one's personal identity, the daughter of Jewish father and African-American mother recalls her confusing but ultimately rewarding life lived between two conflicting ethnic identities. When Mel Leventhal married Alice Walker during the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, his mother declared him dead and did not reconcile until after the birth of her first grandchild.
-
Black, White, Just Right!
Marguerite W. Davol
A girl explains how her parents differ in color, tastes in art and food, and pet preferences, and how she herself is different too but just right.
-
Blended
Sharon M. Draper
Piano-prodigy Isabella, eleven, whose black father and white mother struggle to share custody, never feels whole, especially as racial tensions affect her school, her parents both become engaged, and she and her stepbrother are stopped by police.
-
Bobby the Brave (Sometimes)
Lisa Yee
Fourth-grader Bobby is hurt when he hears his father, a former professional football player, say that the two of them are nothing alike, but finally summons the courage to talk about it after he suffers a public asthma attack.
-
Bonjour, Lonnie
Faith Ringgold
An African-American Jewish boy traces his ancestry with the help of the Love Bird of Paris.
-
Booker T. Washington (Biographies of Biracial Achievers)
Jim Whiting
Biography of the African American slave who was freed, got an education, and opened Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and devoted his life to black education.
-
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah
Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life....
-
Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment
Sundee Tucker Frazier
As biracial Brendan Buckley enters middle school, he deals with issues with his African American father, a new girl at school, and his changing friendship with his best friend.