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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Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums
Hedi Argent
This brightly illustrated book for young children helps to explain the diversity and 'difference' of family groups and encourages an understanding and appreciation of same sex parents. Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums will be particularly useful for social workers, child care professionals, carers and adoptive parents when exploring the diversity of modern family life with young children. One of the rare children's books to explore and discuss adoption by same sex parents.
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Journey
Patricia MacLachlan
Left by their mother with their grandparents, two children feel as if their past has been erased until Grandfather finds a way to restore it to them.
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Journey Home
Lawrence McKay, Jr.
Mai returns to Vietnam, the land of her mother's birth, to discover both a new country and something about herself.
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Joy of Apex
Napatsi Folger
Joy is ten years old, living in Apex, Nunavut - a suburb of Iqaluit. Her perfect life is shattered by her parent's separation.
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Juana and Lucas: Big Problemas
Juana Medina
Juana's life is just about perfect. She lives in the beautiful city of Bogotaa with her two most favorite people in the world: her mami and her dog, Lucas. Lately, though, things have become a little less perfect. Mami has a new hairdo and a new amigo named Luis with whom she has been spending a LOT of time. He is kind and teaches Juana about things like photography and jazz music, but sometimes Juana can't help wishing things would go back to the way they were before. When Mami announces that she and Luis are getting married and that they will all be moving to a new casa, Juana is quite distraught. Lucky for her, though, some things will never change -- like how much Mami loves her.
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Jubilee
Patricia Reilly Giff
Judith stopped talking long ago when Mom left her in the care of beloved Aunt Cora. Going back into a regular fifth-grade classroom won't be easy, but she has her Dog and new friend who will help her through.
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Jubilee Journey
Carolyn Meyer
Emily Rose has always felt comfortable growing up in Connecticut with her African American mother and her "French American" father, but when they spend some time with her great-grandmother in Texas, Emily Rose learns about her black heritage and uncovers some new and exciting parts of her own identity.
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Julián is a Mermaid
Jessica Love
While riding the subway home from the pool with his abuela one day, Julián notices three women spectacularly dressed up. Their hair billows in brilliant hues, their dresses end in fishtails, and their joy fills the train car. When Julián gets home, daydreaming of the magic he's seen, all he can think about is dressing up just like the ladies in his own fabulous mermaid costume: a butter-yellow curtain for his tail, the fronds of a potted fern for his headdress. But what will Abuela think about the mess he makes -- and even more importantly, what will she think about how Julián sees himself?
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Jumpstart the World
Catherine Ryan Hyde
Sixteen-year-old Elle falls in love with Frank, the neighbor who helps her adjust to being on her own in a big city, but learning that he is transgendered turns her world upside-down.
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Just Add One Chinese Sister: An Adoption Story
Patricia McMahon and Conor Clarke McCarthy
Claire and her mother are working together on a scrapbook as they relive their first days and hours together following Claire's arrival from her birth home in China.
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Just a Girl
Carrie Mesrobian
Senior Rianne Hettrick-Wynne has had her share of hookups and parties in small-town Wereford, Minnesota. Now volleyball season is over and her once-solid friendships are unraveling, while an all-of-a-sudden relationship with Luke Pinsky is weirdly becoming serious. Add to that the possibility of getting kicked out of her house, and Rianne is desperate to make a plan that doesn't include going to college or working at Planet Tan for the rest of her life. At the same time, her divorced parents have started cohabiting again without any explanation, making Rianne wonder why they're so intent on pointing out every bad choice she makes when they can't even act like adults. That's not the only question she can't answer: How is it that Sergei, a broken-English-speaking Russian who makes his own vodka, is the only one who seems to understand her? And why, when she has Luke, the most unattainable boy in Wereford, all to herself, does she want anything but? Perhaps most confounding is the "easy girl" reputation that Rianne has gotten stuck with by doing the same things that guys do without judgment or consequence. If they're just being guys, then why can't Rianne just be a girl?
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Just for Now: Kids and the People of the Court
Kimberly Morris and Kathleen Burke
When Gilbert and his big sister Rachel go into foster care they meet a lot of adults who are there to help them--a caseworker, foster parents, foster brothers and sisters, a lawyer, a therapist, a judge, their own court appointed special advocate (CASA), and a dog named Spud. Explains the roles of various people in the court system.
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Just Girls
Rachel Gold
To quell the controversy over a trans girl living in their dorm, Tucker claims she is transgendered, and is placed on the receiving end of prejudice and bullying over it.
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Just Like Home
Elizabeth I. Miller
A young Hispanic girl chronicles, in both English and Spanish, her move to the United States, as she finds that while some things are different, some things are just like home.
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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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Keeping Up with Roo
Sharlee Mullins Glenn
Gracie has always had a special bond with her Aunt Roo, who is mentally disabled, but that relationship starts to change when Gracie begins school.
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Keesha & Her Two Moms Go Swimming
Monica Bey-Clarke and Cheril N. Clarke
A story of Keesha and her two moms for a fun day of swimming at the pool where she meets up with her best friend, Trevor and his two dads.
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Kele's Secret
Tololwa Marti Mollel
Eggs mark the spot - the secret spot where Kele the chicken has been laying. Light hearted game of detective in this account of a boy's adventure on his grandmother's coffee farm in Tanzania.
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Keurium
Jessica Sun Lee
Shay Stone lies in a hospital bed, catatonic -- dead to the world. Her family thinks it's a ploy for attention. Doctors believe it's the result of an undisclosed trauma. At the mercy of memories and visitations, Shay unearths secrets that may have led to her collapse. Will she remain paralyzed in denial? Or can she accept the unfathomable and break free?
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Kevin Keller
Dan Parent
Follows Riverdale's newest resident Kevin Kendall as he meets Archie and his friends, falls in love with journalism, and is inspired to join the military.
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Kevin Keller: Drive Me Crazy
Dan Parent
Kevin has gone from the new kid in town to one of the most well-known and popular students at Riverdale High School! Struggling to stay on top of his new duties while trying to find time for a social life, Kevin deals with the mishaps and mayhem that have always been a staple of high school life in Riverdale. From his first car to first dates to a starring role in a school play (written by Veronica?!) it's bound to be an eventful year for Kevin. Not to mention a surprise appearance and introduction by none other than George Takei!
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Kids Need to be Safe: A Book for Children in Foster Care
Julie Nelson
Explains that all children are important and need safe places to live and play, and describes what foster parents do and how foster children may feel when placed in a foster home.
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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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Kimchi & Calamari
Rose Kent
Teenaged Joseph Calderaro, who was adopted from Korea by Italian parents, begins to make important self-discoveries about race and family after his social studies teacher assigns an essay on cultural heritage and tracing the past.