Racial diversity displayed in families continues to expand as people from different racial backgrounds overcome the hurdles and stigma of mixed race relationships, marriage, and children. Often these stories reveal themes involving racism and prejudice.
Browse by Racial Diversity:
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Red Butterfly
A. L. Sonnichsen
A young orphaned girl in modern-day China discovers the meaning of family in this inspiring story told in verse, in the tradition of Inside Out and Back Again and Sold. Kara never met her birth mother. Abandoned as an infant, she was taken in by an American woman living in China. Now eleven, Kara spends most of her time in their apartment, wondering why she and Mama cannot leave the city of Tianjin and go live with Daddy in Montana. Mama tells Kara to be content with what she has -- but what if Kara secretly wants more? Told in lyrical, moving verse, Red Butterfly is the story of a girl learning to trust her own voice, discovering that love and family are limitless, and finding the wings she needs to reach new heights.
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Red Thread Sisters
Caro Antoinette Peacock
This novel, by Carol Antoinette Peacock, offers a "story of friendship, family, and love. Wen has spent the first eleven years of her life at an orphanage in rural China . . . [with] her best friend, Shu Ling. When Wen is adopted by an American couple, she struggles . . . knowing that Shu Ling remains back at the orphanage, alone. Wen knows that her best friend deserves a family and a future, too. But finding a home for Shu Ling isn't easy, and time is running out."
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Revolutions of the Heart
Marsha Qualey
Cory's seventeenth year is marked by her mother's sudden death, the return of her hotheaded older brother, her romance with a Native American boy, and the eruption of bigotry in her small Wisconsin town.
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Rice and Beans
Wiley Blevins
A young girl adopted from China sees that her hair and skin color are different from that of her parents. She finds, however, that there's much more to making a family than sharing red hair and freckles.
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Robin and Ruby
K.M. Soehnlein
At twenty-years-old, Robin MacKenzie is waiting for his life to start. Then, one hot June weekend, Robin gets dumped by his boyfriend and quickly hits the road with his best friend George to find his teenaged sister, Ruby, who's vanished from a party at the Jersey Shore. As their paths converge, Robin and Ruby confront the sadness of their shared past and rebuild the bonds that still run deep.
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Rock & Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story
Sebastian Robertson
Canadian guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson is known mainly for his central role in the musical group the Band. But how did he become one of Rolling Stone's top 100 guitarists of all time? Written by his son, Sebastian, this is the story of a rock-and-roll legend's journey through music, beginning when he was taught to play guitar at nine years old on a Native American reservation. Rock and Roll Highway is the story of a young person's passion, drive, and determination to follow his dream.
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Romiette and Julio
Sharon M. Draper
Romiette, an African-American girl, and Julio, a Hispanic boy, discover that they attend the same high school after falling in love on the Internet, but are harrassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.
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Rosa Parks: Civil Rights Activist
Chuck Bednar
Profiles the life and career of the civil rights activist Rosa Parks.
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Rosie's Family: An Adoption Story
Lori Rosove
Rosie's family is a story about belonging in a family regardless of differences. Rosie is a beagle who was adopted by schnauzers. She feels different from the rest of the family and sets forth many questions that children who were adopted may have.
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Round and Round Together: Taking a Merry-Go-Round Ride into the Civil Rights Movement
Amy Nathan
The author tells the story of how individuals in Baltimore integrated one amusement park in their town and offers an overview of the history of segregation and the civil rights movement.
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Roxy the Raccoon: A Story to Help Children Learn about Disability and Inclusion
Alice Reeves
Roxy lives in the forest with her three best friends, who she loves to visit and play games with. Roxy is in a wheelchair, so sometimes it is harder for her to go to the same places and play the same games as the other animals. Roxy and her friends realise that by making a few small changes and working together, they can make the forest a better place for everyone. Roxy teaches us that there are bunches of ways to be more inclusive of those who have a disability so that everyone can join in.
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Runaways, Vol. 1: Find Your Way Home
Rainbow Rowell
When the Runaways eliminate the Pride from Los Angeles, it leaves a vacuum of power in the city's underworld, and soon Nico, Karolina, Gert, Chase, and Molly are on the run again to uncover the truth behind their parents' past before it catches up to them.
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Runaways, Vol. 2: Best Friends Forever
Rainbow Rowell
The Runaways are a family again! But a family needs a guardian, and the only Runaway who's got her life together is in middle school. And, even for a kid like Molly who likes her classes, that can be fraught with peril. Meanwhile, there's a new arrival as the gang welcomes Karolina's girlfriend - Julie Power of Power Pack! Having an experienced adventurer around will be useful when one of the universe's most fearsome villains invades the hostel! But do some of the Runaways have mixed feelings about Julie's arrival? As Molly contemplates a supernatural deal that must have a monkey's paw-esque downside, one of the team suff ers a fate worse than death. Really! And will the Runaways' greatest foe be...well-meaning outsiders who want to help them?!
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Ruth and the Green Book
Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Gwen Strauss
When Ruth and her parents take a motor trip from Chicago to Alabama to visit her grandma, they rely on a pamphlet called "The Negro Motorist Green Book" to find places that will serve them. Includes facts about "The Green Book."
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Saga, Volume One
Brian K. Vaughan
When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe.
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Sammy Goes Flying
Odette Elliott
Sammy dreams of flying. His older siblings are going on a school trip to an aeroplane museum. But Sammy is too small to go. Then Grandma plans a magical day out just for Sammy.
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Screaming Divas
Suzanne Kamata
A teenage girl band in 1980s South Carolina becomes a local sensation, but just as its members are about to achieve their rock girl dreams, tragedy strikes.
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See No Color
Shannon Gibney
Alex has always identified herself as a baseball player, the daughter of a winning coach, but when she realizes that is not enough she begins to come to terms with her adoption and her race.
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See You Tomorrow, Charles
Miriam Cohen
When Charles, a young blind boy, joins their first-grade class, Anna Maria and the other children feel unsure of themselves and of him until they learn to accept Charles.
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Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation
Duncan Tonatiuh
Years before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez, an eight-year-old girl of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, played an instrumental role in Mendez v. Westminster, the landmark desegregation case of 1946 in California.
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Seraphina
Rachel Hartman
Seraphina is a half-dragon, descended from a dragon mother who took human form and a father who has no particular fondness for Seraphina’s kind. Not that anyone else does either. Hers is a world where dragons and humans live and work side by side—but below the surface, tensions and hostilities are on the rise. Seraphina guards her true self with all of her being, but when a member of the royal family is brutally murdered, she’s suddenly thrust into the spotlight, drawn into the investigation alongside the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian. As the two uncover a sinister plot to destroy the wavering peace of the kingdom, Seraphina’s struggle to protect her secret becomes increasingly difficult . . . and its discovery could mean her very life.
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Seven Ways We Lie
Riley Redgate
A chance encounter tangles the lives of seven high school students, each resisting the allure of one of the seven deadly sins, and each telling their story from their seven distinct points of view.
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Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Rachel Stuckey
Presents information about sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as related social issues and ways of dealing with problems that a person may experience due to one's gender and sexual orientation.
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Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters
Evelyn Nakano Glenn
Shades of Difference examines the significance of skin color in different societies around the world and its effects on relations between and within racial groups.
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Shades of People
Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly
An author and photographer join forces in this pictorial essay on skin color, demonstrating the different appearances children can have, but reminding the reader that they are still children that enjoy the same things. Like a wrapped gift, the authors' message is that skin is just a covering and that you cannot tell what someone is like from the color of their skin.