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.
This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by genre.
DIVerse Families is a comprehensive bibliography that demonstrates the growing diversity of families in the United States. This type of bibliography provides teachers, librarians, counselors, adoption agencies, children/young adults, and especially parents and grandparents needing to empower their children with materials that reflect their families.
Browse by Genre:
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Fast Break
Mike Lupica
Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.
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Fat Angie
E.E. Charlton-Trujillo Charlton-Trujillo
Fat Angie's sister was captured in Iraq, she's the resident laughingstock at school, and her therapist tells her to count instead of eat. Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything?
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Father's Day Blues
Irene Smalls-Hector
Cheryl Blues has to write an essay about Father's Day, but since she doesn't live with her father, she consults her grandmother, her aunt, and her mother about fathers.
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Felicia's Favorite Story
Lesléa Newman
It's bedtime, but before Felicia goes to sleep she wants to hear her favorite story, the story of how she was adopted by Mama Nessa and Mama Linda.
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Felix Ever After
Kacen Callender
Felix Love, a transgender seventeen-year-old, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.
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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.
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Finding Audrey
Sophie Kinsella
Meet Audrey: an ordinary teenage girl with not so ordinary problems. Aside from her completely crazy and chaotic family, she suffers from an anxiety disorder which makes talking to her brother's hot new best friend a bit of a challenge.
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Finding Joy
Marion Coste
Shu-li, an infant girl who had to be sent away by her family in China, is adopted by an American family and renamed Joy.
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Find Me
Romily Bernard
When teen hacker and foster child Wick Tate finds a dead classmate's diary on her front step, with a note reading "Find me," she sets off on a perverse game of hide-and-seek to catch the killer.
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Fire Song
Adam Garnet Jones
How can Shane reconcile his feelings for David with his desire for a better life? Shane is still reeling from the suicide of his kid sister, Destiny. How could he have missed the fact that she was so sad? He tries to share his grief with his girlfriend, Tara, but she's too concerned with her own needs to offer him much comfort. What he really wants is to be able to turn to the one person on the rez whom he loves--his friend, David. Things go from bad to worse as Shane's dream of going to university is shattered and his grieving mother withdraws from the world. Worst of all, he and David have to hide their relationship from everyone. Shane feels that his only chance of a better life is moving to Toronto, but David refuses to join him. When yet another tragedy strikes, the two boys have to make difficult choices about their future together. With deep insight into the life of Indigenous people on the reserve, this book masterfully portrays how a community looks to the past for guidance and comfort while fearing a future of poverty and shame.
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First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover
Mitali Perkins
During her father's presidential campaign, sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton, who was adopted from Pakistan at the age of three, struggles with campaign staffers who want to give her a more "all-American" image and create a fake weblog in her name.
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Fish in a Tree
Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of smart people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating clever yet disruptive distractions. She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath the trouble maker. With his help, Ally learns not to be so hard on herself and that dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. As her confidence grows, Ally feels free to be herself and the world starts opening up with possibilities. She discovers that there’s a lot more to her—and to everyone—than a label, and that great minds don’t always think alike.
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Five-Finger Discount
Barthe DeClements
Ten-year-old Jerry's attempts to adjust to his new school and make new friends are complicated by his determination to keep secret the fact that his father is serving time in the local prison for being a thief.
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Five, Six, Seven, Nate!
Tim Federle
Now on Broadway as second understudy for E.T., Nate Foster keeps in close contact with his best friend, Libby, as he faces his nemesis, and his own insecurities as the cast member with the least training and experience.
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Fly Away Home
Eve Bunting
A homeless boy who lives in an airport with his father, moving from terminal to terminal trying not to be noticed, is given hope when a trapped bird finally finds its freedom.
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Focused
Alyson Gerber
Twelve-year-old Clea wants to do her homework, follow instructions, pay attention in school, and play chess on the school team, but somehow she cannot focus on whatever is in front of her, and the other kids at school are starting to notice and make fun of her; when her worried parents take her to be tested she finds out that she has ADHD (only without the hyperactivity)--and with help from the psychiatrist who seems to really understand her she is determined to learn how to focus.
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For Black Girls Like Me
Mariama Lockington
Makeda June Kirkland is eleven years old, adopted, and black. Her parents and big sister are white, and even though she loves her family very much, Makeda often feels left out. When Makeda's family moves from Maryland to New Mexico, she leaves behind her best friend, Lena― the only other adopted black girl she knows― for a new life. In New Mexico, everything is different. At home, Makeda’s sister is too cool to hang out with her anymore and at school, she can’t seem to find one real friend. Through it all, Makeda can’t help but wonder: What would it feel like to grow up with a family that looks like me? Through singing, dreaming, and writing secret messages back and forth with Lena, Makeda might just carve a small place for herself in the world. For Black Girls Like Me is for anyone who has ever asked themselves: How do you figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you came from?
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Forever Fingerprints: An Amazing Discovery for Adopted Children
Sherrie Eldridge
Lucie's aunt and uncle are having a baby, which makes Lucie wonder about her birth mother and what it was like before she was born.
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Forever, or a Long, Long Time
Caela Carter
Flora and her brother, Julian, don’t believe they were born. They’ve lived in so many foster homes, they can’t remember where they came from. And even now that they’ve been adopted, Flora still struggles to believe that they’ve found their forever home. So along with their new mother, Flora and Julian begin a journey to go back and discover their past—for only then can they really begin to build their future.
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Forever Rhen
Sandra Athans
Rhen's parents are getting a divorce, and Rhen worries about the change. Find out what changes and what stays the same.
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Forged by Fire
Sharon M. Draper
Teenage Gerald, who has spent years protecting his fragile half-sister from their abusive father, faces the prospect of one final confrontation before the problem can be solved. When Gerald was a child he was fascinated by fire. But fire is dangerous and powerful, and tragedy strikes. His substance-addicted mother is taken from him. Then he loses the loving generosity of a favorite aunt. A brutal stepfather with a flaming temper and an evil secret makes his life miserable. The one bright light in Gerald's life is his little half sister, Angel, whom he struggles to protect from her father, Jordan Sparks, who abuses her, and from their mother, whose irresponsible behavior forces Gerald to work hard to keep the family together. As a teenager, Gerald finds success as a member of the Hazelwood Tigers basketball team, while Angel develops her talents as a dancer. Trouble still haunts them, however, and Gerald learns, painfully, that young friends can die and old enemies must be faced. In the end he must stand up to his stepfather alone in a blazing confrontation. Sharon M. Draper has interwoven characters and events from her previous novel, Tears of a Tiger, in this unflinchingly realistic portrayal of poverty and child abuse. It is an inspiring story of a young man who rises above the tragic circumstances of his life by drawing on the love and strength of family and friends
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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.
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Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before
Karelia Stetz-Waters
Shy, intellectual, and living in rural Oregon, Triinu Hoffman just doesn't fit in. She does her best to hide behind her dyed hair and black wardrobe, but it's hard to ignore the bullying of Pip Weston and Principal Pinn. It's even harder to ignore the allure of other girls. As Triinu tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also the differences that can set her free. With everyone in town taking sides in the battle for equal rights in Oregon, Triinu must stand up for herself, learn what it is to love and have her heart broken, and become her own woman.
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For Keeps
Natasha Friend
For sixteen years, Josie Gardner and her mom, Kate, have been a team. It's been the Gardner Girls against the world, and that's how Josie likes it. Until one day, they find out that Paul Tucci, Kate's high school boyfriend-the father Josie has never met-is back in town. Josie's mom suddenly turns back into the heartbroken teenager she was when Paul moved away. Meanwhile, Josie's on the verge of having her first real boyfriend. And when Josie learns some surprising truths about Paul Tucci and the past, she begins questioning what she thought she knew, and finds out what happens when a girl gets the guy she always wanted and the dad she never knew she needed.
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For My Family, Love, Allie
Ellen B. Senisi
Allie, whose father is black and mother is white, decides to make special food as a present for her relatives when they come for a big family party.