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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Heroes
Robert Cormier
After serving in the United States Army in World War II and having his face blown off by a grenade, Francis, a young soldier, returns home hoping to find--and kill--the former childhood hero he feels betrayed him.
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How it Feels to Live with a Physical Disability
Jill Krementz
Reveals, through photographs and interviews, the indomitable spirit and strength of children living with such physical disabilities as blindness, cerebral palsy, paralysis, and missing limbs.
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How to Keep Rolling After a Fall
Karole Cozzo
Mean girl Nikki Baylor, accused of a cyberbullying incident that nearly resulted in a classmate's suicide, is expelled from school, abandoned by her friends, and distrusted by her parents but she gets a second chance after meeting Pax, a spirited wheelchair rugby player.
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Hurt Go Happy
Ginny Rorby
When thirteen-year-old Joey Willis, deaf since the age of six, meets Dr. Charles Mansell and his chimpanzee Sukari, who use sign language, her world blooms with possibilities but that of the chimp begins to narrow.
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I Funny: A Middle School Story
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Resolving to become the world's greatest stand-up comedian despite less-than-funny challenges in his life, wheelchair-bound middle school student Jamie Grimm endures bullying from his mean-spirited cousin and hopes he will be fairly judged when he enters a local comedy contest.
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I Funny: School of Laughs (I Funny #5)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
When a new principal threatens to close the school library, Jamie Grimm tries to save the day by teaching a comedy class for his fellow students.
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I Funny TV: A Middle School Story (I Funny #4)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Jamie Grimm has finally accomplished his dream of proving himself the Planet's Funniest Kid Comic, and the sky's the limit from there. Enter a couple of TV executives with a huge plan for Jamie: a new show about Jamie and his oddball friends!
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I Have Lost My Way
Gayle Forman
A fateful accident draws three strangers together over the course of a single day: Freya who has lost her voice while recording her debut album. Harun who is making plans to run away from everyone he has ever loved. Nathaniel who has just arrived in New York City with a backpack, a desperate plan, and nothing left to lose. As the day progresses, their secrets start to unravel and they begin to understand that the way out of their own loss might just lie in helping the others out of theirs.
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I'll Meet You There
Heather Demetrios
Skylar Evans, seventeen, yearns to escape Creek View by attending art school, but after her mother's job loss puts her dream at risk, a rekindled friendship with Josh, who joined the Marines to get away then lost a leg in Afghanistan, and her job at the Paradise motel lead her to appreciate her home town.
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Imagine Me on a Sit-Ski!
George Moran
Billy and his classmates, who are physically challenged, learn that they can go skiing just like other youngsters when they are fitted with special equipment, such as a sit-ski, and feel the freedom and exhilaration of a sport from which they once were excluded.
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Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
Dusti Bowling
Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again. Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all...even without arms.
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I Totally Funniest: A Middle School Story (I Funny #3)
James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Jamie Grimm is back and better than ever. After scoring big on national TV in the semifinals contest, everyone back home is jumping on the Jamie Grimm bandwagon, and all the attention might be going to his head. Not only are his friendships starting to suffer, but the pressure of coming up with his best material ever for the ultimate standup act to snag the final win in Hollywood is pushing Jamie to the brink. Suddenly, life isn't looking very funny anymore. Can Jamie take the grand prize without pushing away his fans, friends and family?
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Jacob's Eye Patch
Beth Kobliner and Jacob Shaw
Answering questions about his eye-patch slows Jacob and his family down as he anxiously tries to get to the store to buy a special globe, but soon he is reminded that even he is curious when he see someone who is different. Includes facts about eye conditions and handling strangers' curiosity.
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Janine
Maryann Cocca-Leffler
Janine is one of a kind. She focuses on the positive while navigating life with disabilities. She makes a difference just by being herself
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Janine and the Field Day Finish
Maryann Cocca-Leffler
Today is field day and even though Janine is not good at sports, she is ready to compete. Her body just doesn't work like the other kids'. But no matter what, Janine cheers for everyone and tries her best. During the big race, her classmate Abby trips and falls. Janine is right there to help. But Abby is crushed that she won't win the race. Can Janine teach Abby and her classmates that being a winner is not always about being number one?
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Jeremy's Dreidel
Ellie Gellman
A boy makes a Braille Hanukkah dreidel for his father, who is blind. Includes instructions for making different types of dreidels.
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Jo Makes a Friend
Susan Beth Pfeffer
At the request of her great-aunt, ten-year-old Jo tries to befriend a sad and lonely blind girl who is visiting the neighborhood. Exuberant Jo March never sits still. Whether she's racing against boys or scribbling and acting in her latest play, Jo is always active and creative. So when Aunt March asks her to befriend Pauline Wheeler, Jo can't believe that the girl spends every day cooped up in her bedroom. True, Pauline is blind and utterly dependent on her governess, but her fear of life exhausts Jo's patience. The two girls simply have nothing in common--until they're caught in a snow squall that changes their lives.
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Kami and the Yaks
Andrea Stenn Stryer
In the Himalaya Mountains of Nepal, Kami, a deaf Sherpa boy, braves a fierce storm to lead his father and brother to their family's lost yak herd.
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Katie Can
Erin Palmer
Katie has Down Syndrome, but that's not what makes her so special. Find out what makes Katie unique.
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Kids of Appetite
David Arnold
Teens Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco sit in separate police interrogation rooms telling about the misfits who brought them together and their journey sparked by a message in an urn.
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King for a Day
Rukhsana Khan
Even though he is confined to a wheelchair, a Pakistani boy tries to capture the most kites during Basant, the annual spring kite festival, and become "king" for the day. Includes an afterword about the Basant festival.
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Laurie
Elfi Nijssen
Laurie is a little girl who would love to be like other children, but her hearing problems can make that difficult, until she goes to the ear doctor and gets new hearing aids that allow her to hear things around her clearly.
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Leading Ladies
Marlee Matlin and Doug Cooney
A deaf fourth-grader finds her true calling when she is cast as Dorothy in a school production of "The Wizard of Oz."
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Leonardo's Hand
Warwick Downing
Finally in a foster home with a caring family, Nard, a thirteen-year-old orphan with only one hand, invents a human-powered flying machine with the assistance of the 500-year-old hand of Leonardo da Vinci.
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Liberty
Kirby Larson
In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.