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 Health & Disability:

Physical Disability

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Disability and Families

Hilary W. Poole

Looks at the many different types of disabilities that exist, and discusses how these situations can be a challenge for families, but also a source of great strength.
Drowned

Cyn Balog and Nichola Reilly

Coe is one of the few remaining teenagers on the island of Tides. Deformed and weak, she is constantly reminded that in a world where dry land dwindles at every high tide, she is not welcome. The only bright spot in her harsh and difficult life is the strong, capable Tiam-- but love has long ago been forgotten by her society. The only priority is survival. Until the day their King falls ill, leaving no male heir to take his place. Unrest grows, and for reasons Coe cannot comprehend, she is invited into the privileged circle of royal aides. She soon learns that the dying royal is keeping a secret that will change their world forever. Is there an escape from the horrific nightmare that their island home has become? Coe must race to find the answers and save the people she cares about, before their world and everything they know is lost to the waters.
El Deafo

Cece Bell

Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends. Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school — in the hallway... in the teacher's lounge... in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it's just another way of feeling different... and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?
Emmanuel's Dream

Laurie Ann Thompson

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah's inspiring true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey—is nothing short of remarkable. Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people—but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled. Thompson's lyrical prose and Qualls's bold collage illustrations offer a powerful celebration of triumphing over adversity.
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.
Extraordinary People with Disabilities

Deborah Kent and Kathryn A. Quinlan

Profiles seven dozen people throughout history with various physiccal or mental disabilities.
Fighting for Dontae

Mike Castan

When Mexican American seventh-grader Javier is assigned to work with a special education class and connects with Dontae, who has both physical and mental disabilities, his reputation among gang members and drug abusers no longer seems very important.
Forget Me Not

Ellie Terry

When her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend, Calliope meets Jinsong at her latest middle school, who becomes her friend despite her Tourette Syndrome and the embarrassment it can cause.
Forrest Gump

Winston Groom

Six foot six, 242 pounds, and possessed of a scant IQ of 70, Forrest Gump is the lovable, surprisingly savvy hero of this classic comic tale. His early life may seem inauspicious, but when the University of Alabama’s football team drafts Forrest and makes him a star, it sets him on an unbelievable path that will transform him from Vietnam hero to world-class Ping-Pong player, from wrestler to entrepreneur. With a voice all his own, Forrest is telling all in a madcap romp through three decades of American history.
Freak the Mighty

Rodman Philbrick

At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.
Friends Everywhere

Donna Jo Napoli

The Little Angel of Friendship watches over Patricia, a nine-year-old deaf girl, as she moves from the family farm to the city and tries to make friends with hearing people.
Friends in the Park

Rochelle Bunnett

Full-color photographic essay of a group of disabled preschoolers playing in the park. Depicts children with Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other less physically obvious disorders.
Gentle's Holler

Kerry Madden

The sixties may have come to other parts of North Carolina, but with Mama pregnant again, Daddy struggling to find work, and nine siblings underfoot, nobody in the holler has much time for modern-day notions. Especially not twelve-year-old Livy Two, aspiring songwriter and self-appointed guardian of little sister Gentle, whose eyes "don't work so good yet." Even after a doctor confirms her fears, Livy Two is determined to make the best of Gentle's situation and sets out to transform the family's scrappy dachshund into a genuine Seeing-Eye dog. But when tragedy strikes, can Livy Two continue to stay strong for her family?
Girl in the Shadows

V. C. Andrews

After the death of her parents, April Taylor flees north to take a job looking after Mrs. Westington's deaf granddaughter, Echo, until the arrival of the girl's mother and her drug-dealing boyfriend puts both girls' lives in deadly danger.
Girl Out of Water

Laura Silverman

When her aunt gets into a car accident, Anise is forced to leave her friends and surfing behind to spend the summer in Nebraska to help care for her cousins, and by doing so, forms familial bonds and new friendships that challenge her feelings of abandonment by her mother.
Girls Like Us

Gail Giles

Graduating from their school's special education program, Quincy and Biddy are placed together in their first independent apartment and discover unexpected things they have in common in the face of past challenges and a harrowing trauma.
Going Bovine

Libba Bray

Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen-year-old who, after being diagnosed with Crutzfeldt-Jacob's (aka mad cow) disease, sets off on a road trip with a death-obsessed video gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital in an attempt to find a cure.
Golden Boy

Tara Sullivan

Light eyes, yellow hair and white skin-- Habo is an albino, strange and alone. His father, unable to accept Habo, abandons the family. When they are forced from their small Tanzanian village, Habo knows he is to blame. The family seeks refuge with an aunt in Mwanza....
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.
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.
Harry and Willy and Carrothead

Judith Caseley

Harry was born with no left hand. When he got to school, the kids asked him what was wrong with his arm. "Nothing," said Harry. "That's my prosthesis." Harry's hand didn't keep him from being a good baseball player -- or a good friend. Harry and Willy and Carrothead are three of the most real kids you are apt to meet between book covers, and you will like them as much as they like each other!
Head Case

Sarah Aronson

Seventeen-year-old Frank Marder struggles to deal with the aftermath of an accident he had while driving drunk that killed two people, including his girlfriend, and left him paralyzed from the neck down.
Helen Keller: Toward the Light

Stewart Graff and Polly Anne Graff

A biography of the blind and deaf woman who rose above her physical disabilities to international renown and who helped other handicapped persons to live fuller lives.
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.
Helping Sophia

Anastasia Suen

When Sophia's helper is absent, her fellow third-graders help out by learning how to push her wheelchair.