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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Grandparents Raising Kids
Rae Simons
In 2005, 6 million children were being raised by their grandparents. Sometimes, their grandchildren's parents had died, sometimes they were in prison, and sometimes they just couldn't cope with raising children. When grandparents take in their grandchildren to raise, they have some difficulties most families don't have. They're older, for one thing, and they also have to deal with their own children and that relationship. But they have the wisdom and experience they've gained from raising one set of children already, and this can help. The families in this book have had both good and bad experiences, but they have learned a great deal through them.
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Grandparents Song
Sheila Hamanaka
A rhyming celebration of ancestry and of the diversity that flourishes in this country.
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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Lisa Dunn-Dern
An interracial family enjoys a Saturday ritual. After a pancake breakfast, the mother goes to a hair salon, while the little girl and father style each other's hair. Because her father is bald, the little girl must use her imagination, play-dough, and ribbons to create his hair-do. Each week, the family enjoys each other's new hairstyles.
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Half a Heart
Rosellen Brown
When her biracial daughter appears suddenly after eighteen years searching for the mother who left her, former civil rights activist Miriam Vener begins a painful confrontation with her past.
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Half and Half
Lensey Namioka
At Seattle's annual Folk Fest, twelve-year-old Fiona and her older brother are torn between trying to please their Chinese grandmother and making their Scottish grandparents happy.
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Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural
Claudine C. O'Hearn
Eighteen biracial and bicultural writers address the difficulties and benefits of growing up different in the United States. As we approach the twenty-first century, biracialism and biculturalism are becoming increasingly common. Skin color and place of birth are no longer reliable signifiers of one's identity or origin. Simple questions like 'What are you?' and 'Where are you from?' aren't answered -- they are discussed. These eighteen essays, joined by a shared sense of duality, address the difficulties of not fitting into and the benefits of being part of two worlds. Through the lens of personal experience, they offer a broader spectrum of meaning for race and culture. And in the process, they map a new ethnic terrain that transcends racial and cultural division.
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Half a World Away
Cynthia Kadohata
Twelve-year-old Jaden, an emotionally damaged adopted boy fascinated by electricity, feels a connection to a small, weak toddler with special needs in Kazakhstan, where Jaden's family is trying to adopt a "normal" baby.
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Halle Berry: Academy Award-Winning Actress
Kerrily Sapet
A look at the life and career of the famous actress.
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Happy Birthday to Me (Amy Hodgepodge, #2)
Kim Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Amy is very excited about the special sleepover she has planned for her tenth birthday until her friends get the chance to go to a concert the same night, and meanwhile, she worries that her family will be moving again.
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Happy in Our Skin
Fran Manushkin and Lauren Tobia
Bouquets of babies sweet to hold: cocoa-brown, cinnamon, and honey gold. Ginger-coloured babies, peaches and cream, too--splendid skin for me, splendid skin for you! A delightfully rhythmical read-aloud text is paired with bright, bustling art from the award-winning Lauren Tobia, illustrator of Anna Hibiscus, in this joyful exploration of the new skin of babyhood.
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Hard to Be Six
Arnold Adoff
A six-year-old boy who wants to grow up fast learns a lesson about patience from his grandmother.
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Heavy Vinyl: Riot on the Radio (#1)
Carly Usdin
Starry-eyed Chris has just started the dream job every outcast kid in town wants: working at Vinyl Mayhem. It's as rad as she imagined; her boss is BOSS, her co-workers spend their time arguing over music, pushing against the patriarchy, and endlessly trying to form a band. When Rosie Riot, the staff's favorite singer, mysteriously vanishes the night before her band's show, Chris discovers her co-workers are doing more than just sorting vinyl...Her local indie record store is also a front for a teen girl vigilante fight club!
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Hello Goodbye Dog
Maria Gianferrari
Zara's dog, Moose likes nothing more than being with her favorite girl. However, dogs aren't allowed at school, so Moose has to stay home. Moose, though, is determined to always find her way back to Zara by escaping over and over again. Finally with a great idea and a little bit of training the two friends find a way to be together all day long.
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Hello, Lulu
Caroline Uff
Simple text and illustrations introduce Lulu and her family, Lulu's pets, best friend, and new shoes.
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Hello, My Name is Octicorn
Kevin Diller and Justin Lowe
The octicorn--half octupus and half unicorn--introduces himself and tells readers why, though strange and unique, octicorns make great friends.
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Helping Sophia
Anastasia Suen
When Sophia's helper is absent, her fellow third-graders help out by learning how to push her wheelchair.
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Henry Wants More!
Linda Ashman
Whether spending time with Papa, singing songs with Grandma, playing games with Lucy, or racing with Charlie, toddler Henry wears his family out until bedtime, when Mama is the one who wants more.
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Hidden Roots
Joseph Bruchac
Although he is uncertain why his father is so angry and what secret his mother is keeping from him, eleven-year-old Sonny knows that he is different from his classmates in their small New York town.
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Hiroshima Dreams
Kelly Easton-Ruben
Lin O'Neil, a talented but shy girl growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, develops a close relationship with her Japanese grandmother, who shares Lin's gift of precognition.
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Hold Fast
Blue Balliett
On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.
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Holes in the Sky
Patricia Polacco
Soon after her beloved grandmother's death, Trisha's family moves to a diverse California neighborhood where she meets Stewart and his grandmother, Miss Eula, who brings people together to help a grieving neighbor.
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Honor Among Thieves
Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre
A savvy young criminal with antisocial behavior is recruited to attend the Honors space program and joins a team on a sentient spaceship destined for the far reaches of the galaxy only to discover dangerous secrets hidden among the stars.
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Hooper
Geoff Herbach
For Adam Reed, basketball is a passport. Adam’s basketball skills have taken him from an orphanage in Poland to a loving adoptive mother in Minnesota. When he’s tapped to play on a select AAU team along with some of the best players in the state, it just confirms that basketball is his ticket to the good life: to new friendships, to the girl of his dreams, to a better future. But life is more complicated off the court. When an incident with the police threatens to break apart the bonds Adam’s finally formed after a lifetime of struggle, he must make an impossible choice between his new family and the sport that’s given him everything.
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Hope
Isabell Monk
During a visit with her great-aunt, a young girl learns the story behind her name and learns to feel proud of her biracial heritage.
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Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet
Sheri L. Smith
Disaster strikes when Ana Shen is about to deliver the salutatorian speech at her junior high school graduation, but an even greater crisis looms when her best friend invites a crowd to Ana's house for dinner, and Ana's multicultural grandparents must find a way to share a kitchen.