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:
-
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
James McBride
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful memoir.
-
The Color Purple
Alice Walker
This feminist novel about an abused and uneducated black woman's struggle for empowerment was praised for the depth of its female characters and for its eloquent use of black English vernacular.
-
The Colors of Us
Karen Katz
Seven-year-old Lena and her mother observe the variations in the color of their friends' skin, viewed in terms of foods and things found in nature.
-
The Cook's Family
Laurence Yep
As her parents' arguments become more frequent, Robin looks forward to the visits that she and her grandmother make to Chinatown, where they pretend to be an elderly cook's family, giving Robin new insights into her Chinese heritage.
-
The Cottage in the Woods
Katherine Coville
Presents the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" as told by young Teddy's governess, who came to work at the Vaughn family "cottage" shortly before a golden-haired girl, ragged and dirty, entered the home and soon became a beloved foster child, until evil characters tried to take her away.
-
The Crayon Box that Talked
Shane DeRolf
Although they are many different colors, the crayons in a box discover that when they get together they can appreciate each other and make a complete picture.
-
The Day Santa Stopped Believing in Harold
Maureen Fergus
Santa Claus stops believing that Harold, a small child, exists, and comes up with a plan to find out once and for all if Harold is real.
-
The Deaf Musicians
Pete Seeger and Paul Dubois Jacobs
Lee, a jazz pianist, has to leave his band when he begins losing his hearing, but he meets a deaf saxophone player in a sign language class and together they form a snazzy new band.
-
The Detective's Assistant
Kate Hannigan
In 1859, eleven-year-old Nell goes to live with her aunt, Kate Warne, the first female detective for Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. Nell helps her aunt solve cases, including a mystery surrounding Abraham Lincoln, and the mystery of what happened to Nell's own father. Includes author's note and bibliographic references.
-
The Edification of Sonya Crane
J. D. Guilford
Transferred to a predominantly black high school in Atlanta, Sonya Crane, passing as biracial, hides her real identity when she is accepted into a clique of friends she never had before until Tandy Herman, the most popular girl in school, threatens to expose her.
-
The Fall of Rome
Martha Southgate
Latin instructor Jerome Washington is a man out of place. The lone African-American teacher at the Chelsea School, an elite all-boys boarding school in Connecticut, he has spent nearly two decades trying not to appear too "racial." So he is unnerved when Rashid Bryson, a promising black inner-city student who is new to the school, seeks Washington as a potential ally against Chelsea's citadel of white privilege. Preferring not to align himself with Bryson, Washington rejects the boy's friendship. Surprised and dismayed by Washington's response, Bryson turns instead to Jana Hansen, a middle-aged white divorcée who is also new to the school -- and who has her own reasons for becoming involved in the lives of both Bryson and Washington. Southgate makes her debut as a writer to watch in this compelling, provocative tale of how race and class ensnare Hansen, Washington, and Bryson as they journey toward an inevitable and ultimately tragic confrontation.
-
The Family Book
Todd Parr
Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with only one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special no matter what.
-
The Favorite Daughter
Allen Say
Yuriko, teased at school for her unusual name and Japanese ancestry, yearns to be more ordinary until her father reminds her of how special she is.
-
The Game of Love and Death
Martha Brockenbrough
In Seattle in 1937 two seventeen-year-olds, Henry, who is white, and Flora, who is African-American, become the unwitting pawns in a game played by two immortal figures, Love and Death, where they must choose each other at the end, or one of them will die.
-
The Game of Love and Death
Martha Brockenbrough
In Seattle in 1937 two seventeen-year-olds, Henry, who is white, and Flora, who is African-American, become the unwitting pawns in a game played by two immortal figures, Love and Death, where they must choose each other at the end, or one of them will die.
-
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Mackenzi Lee
Henry "Monty" Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty's sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe. When a reckless decision turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything Monty knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.
-
The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere, #1)
Heidi Heilig
Sixteen-year-old Nix has sailed across the globe and through centuries aboard her time-traveling father's pirate ship, but when he gambles with her very existence, it all may come to an end.
-
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
Heidi W. Durrow
After a family tragedy orphans her, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., moves into her grandmother's mostly black community in the 1980s, where she must swallow her grief and confront her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.
-
The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough
Katie Smith Milway
Eleven-year-old María Luz and her family have a small farm in Honduras, but may not have enough food to sustain them for the year, so Maria's father must leave home to find work, leaving her in charge of the garden. Includes helpful tips and organizations that are set up to help aid in the global food crisis.
-
The Great American Whatever
Tim Federle
Teenaged Quinn, an aspiring screenwriter, copes with his sister's death while his best friend forces him back out into the world to face his reality.
-
The Great Big Book of Families
Mary Hoffman
Features illustrations and descriptions of different types of families and how their lives are similar and different.
-
The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
-
The Hello, Goodbye Window
Norton Juster
A little girl describes the magic kitchen window in her grandparents' home.
-
The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4)
Rick Riordan
Greek and Roman demigods from the Prophecy of Seven must work together to seal the Doors of Death--and help Percy and Annabeth escape the Underworld in the process
-
The House You Pass on the Way
Jacqueline Woodson
When thirteen-year-old Staggerlee, the daughter of a racially mixed marriage, spends a summer with her cousin Trout, she begins to question her sexuality to Trout and catches a glimpse of her possible future self. Thirteen-year-old Staggerlee used to be called Evangeline, but she took on a fiercer name. She's always been different--set apart by the tragic deaths of her grandparents in an anti-civil rights bombing, by her parents' interracial marriage, and by her family's retreat from the world. This summer she has a new reason to feel set apart--her confused longing for her friend Hazel. When cousin Trout comes to stay, she gives Staggerlee a first glimpse of her possible future selves and the world beyond childhood.