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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Stumpkin
Lucy Ruth Cummins
A stemless pumpkin that yearns to be a Halloween jack-o-lantern watches sadly as all of the other pumpkins in the shop are chosen.
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Suckerpunch
David Hernandez
Shy, seventeen-year-old Marcus and his sixteen-year-old brother, Enrique, accompanied by two friends, drive from their home in southern California to Monterey to confront the abusive father who walked out a year earlier, and who now wants to return home.
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Suicide Notes
Michael Thomas Ford
Brimming with sarcasm, fifteen-year-old Jeff describes his stay in a psychiatric ward after attempting to commit suicide.
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Summer Camp Adventure
Marsha Hubler
Having taken a crash course in American Sign Language, Camp Tioga junior counselor Skye tries to communicate with a troublesome camper who is deaf, and when he disappears on horseback into the hills, she and Chad lead the rescue team.
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Summerlost
Ally Condie
It's the first real summer since the accident that killed Cedar's father and younger brother, Ben. Cedar and what’s left of her family are returning to the town of Iron Creek for the summer. They’re just settling into their new house when a boy named Leo, dressed in costume, rides by on his bike. Intrigued, Cedar follows him to the renowned Summerlost theatre festival. Soon, she not only has a new friend in Leo and a job working concessions at the festival, she finds herself surrounded by mystery. The mystery of the tragic, too-short life of the Hollywood actress who haunts the halls of Summerlost. And the mystery of the strange gifts that keep appearing for Cedar.
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Summer of a Thousand Pies
Margaret Dilloway
After her father goes to jail, Cady Bennett, twelve, is taken from foster care to spend a summer with her estranged Aunt Michelle, trying to save her failing pie shop.
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Sunday Shopping
Sally Derby
Every Sunday night a young girl and her grandmother go on an imaginary shopping trip using play money and the advertisements in the newspaper as a guide for their purchases.
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Sunny
Jason Reynolds
Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds. Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics. They all have a lot of lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of four books in Jason Reynold’s electrifying middle grade series. Sunny is just that—sunny. Always ready with a goofy smile and something nice to say, Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders team. But Sunny’s life hasn’t always been sun beamy-bright. You see, Sunny is a murderer. Or at least he thinks of himself that way. His mother died giving birth to him, and based on how Sunny’s dad treats him—ignoring him, making Sunny call him Darryl, never “Dad”—it’s no wonder Sunny thinks he’s to blame. It seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad’s eyes is win first place ribbons running the mile, just like his mom did. But Sunny doesn’t like running, never has. So he stops. Right in the middle of a race.
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Surviving the City
Tasha Spillett
Tasha Spillet's graphic-novel debut, Surviving the City, is a story about womanhood, friendship, resilience, and the anguish of a missing loved one. Miikwan and Dez are best friends. Miikwan's Anishinaabe; Dez is Inninew. Together, the teens navigate the challenges of growing up in an urban landscape - they're so close, they even completed their Berry Fast together. However, when Dez's grandmother becomes too sick, Dez is told she can't stay with her anymore. With the threat of a group home looming, Dez can't bring herself to go home and disappears. Miikwan is devastated, and the wound of her missing mother resurfaces. Will Dez's community find her before it's too late? Will Miikwan be able to cope if they don't?
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Susan Laughs
Jeanne Willis
Rhyming couplets describe a wide range of common emotions and activities experienced by a little girl who uses a wheelchair.
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Swap!
Steve Light
A peg-legged youngster uses his bartering skills to trade for sails, anchors, a ship's wheel and other necessary supplies to fix their ship and make a friend in the process.
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Swimming in the Monsoon Sea
Shyam Selvadurai
Although life for Amrith in 1980 Sri Lanka seems rather uneventful and orderly, things change in a hurry when his male cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith finds himself completely enamored with his new visitor. The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life before, when his doting mother was still alive. Amrith's holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his school's production of Othello and he is learning to type at Uncle Lucky's tropical fish business. Then, like an unexpected monsoon, his cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith's ordered life is storm-tossed. He finds himself falling in love with the Canadian boy. Othello, with its powerful theme of disastrous jealousy, is the backdrop to the drama in which Amrith finds himself immersed.
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Symptoms of Being Human
Jeff Garvin
A gender-fluid teenager who struggles with identity creates a blog on the topic that goes viral, and faces ridicule at the hands of fellow students.
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Taking Terri Mueller
Norma Fox Mazer
For as long as I can remember, It's just been Daddy and me. I can't remember my mother. I was told she died in an accident when I was four, and that's all I know about her. I don't understand why there isn't even a picture of her. The other thing I don't understand is why we're always moving — different towns — with no explanations. I know something is wrong. It begins with my birth certificate— my only link to my mother. Then I overhear a conversation: Tell terri the truth , Why are we moving all the time? Are we running away from something or someone? What kind of secret is Daddy hiding...and why can't he share it with me.
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Tanny's Meow
Ursula Ferro
This delightful story begins when Rachel's Mama Mariah discovers an orphan kitten which Rachel's family (two moms, Rachel and her brother, Tim) then adopt. This small 51 page chapter book with black and white illustrations continues with tales of the kitten's adventures, through the seasons, culminating with a big surprise for Rachel. Grandparents, school, and holidays are part of the story.
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Tan to Tamarind: Poems About the Color Brown
Malathi Michelle Iyengar
Poems in celebration of brown skin color.
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Tash Hearts Tolstoy
Kathryn Ormsbee
Fame and success come at a cost for Natasha "Tash" Zelenka when she creates the web series "Unhappy Families," a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina--written by Tash's eternal love Leo Tolstoy.
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Teddy's Favorite Toy
Christian Trimmer
Teddy's favorite toy has the best manners, and the sickest fighting skills, and the ability to pull off a number of fierce looks. But when his toy goes missing, it turns out there's another woman around who's pretty fierce--it's Teddy's mom, and she will stop at nothing to reunite Teddy with his favorite toy.
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Tell Me
Joan Bauer
Feeling scared and powerless when her father's anger escalates and her parents separate, twelve-year-old Anna spends the summer with her grandmother and decides to make a difference when she sees what seems to be a girl held against her will.
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Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born
Jamie Lee Curtis
A young girl asks her parents to tell her again the cherished family story of her birth and adoption.
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Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel
Sara Farizan
High school junior Leila's Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates at Armstead Academy, and if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual, so she struggles to sort out her growing feelings by confiding in her old friends.
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Tell Me a Real Adoption Story
Betty Jean Lifton
A parent tells an adopted child about coming to the family.
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Ten Days and Nine Nights: An Adoption Story
Yumi Heo
A young girl eagerly awaits the arrival of her newly-adopted sister from Korea, while her whole family prepares.
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Terror at Bottle Creek
Watt Key
Thirteen-year-old Cort's father is a local expert on hunting and swamp lore in lower Alabama who has been teaching his son everything he knows. But when a deadly Gulf Coast hurricane makes landfall, Cort must unexpectedly put his all skills--and bravery--to the test.
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Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom
Brendan Halpin and Emily Franklin
Feeling humiliated and confused when his best friend Tessa rejects his love and reveals a long-held secret, high school senior Luke must decide if he should stand by Tessa when she invites a female date to the prom, sparking a firestorm of controversy in their small Indiana town.