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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The Red Pencil
Andrea Davis Pinkney
After her tribal village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, must flee to safety at a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the friendship and encouragement of a wise elder.
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The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
Dan Gemeinhart
Five years. That's how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash. Coyote hasn’t been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished―the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box―she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days...without him realizing it. Along the way, they'll pick up a strange crew of misfit travelers. Lester has a lady love to meet. Salvador and his mom are looking to start over. Val needs a safe place to be herself. And then there's Gladys... Over the course of thousands of miles, Coyote will learn that going home can sometimes be the hardest journey of all...but that with friends by her side, she just might be able to turn her “once upon a time” into a “happily ever after.”
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The Remember Balloons
Jessie Oliveros
James has a bunch of balloons, each of which holds a special memory, but as his grandfather ages and loses his own balloons, James discovers that he is gaining new ones.
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There's Only One of Me!
Pat Hutchins
Daughter Sister Half-sister Stepdaughter Stepsister Cousin Niece Granddaughter Great-Granddaughter There are so many things to be when the relatives are coming to your birthday party But sometimes the best thing of all is to be a birthday girl. Oh, happy birthday
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There's Only One You
Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook
Celebrate your individuality with this picture book that honors all the wonderful things that make you . . . you.--.
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The Ring Bearer
Floyd Cooper
Jackson's mom is getting married, and Jackson is nervous about his role and his new family.
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The Road to Paris
Nikki Grimes
Inconsolable at being separated from her older brother, eight-year-old Paris is apprehensive about her new foster family but just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life-changing decision.
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The Romantics
Leah Konen
When his first big relationship crumbles on the heels of his parents' painful separation, seventeen-year-old Gael is heartbroken until Love intervenes.
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The Rope Walk: A Novel
Carrie Brown
At her tenth birthday party, Alice, a motherless young girl protected by her family, encounters two people that change her life--Theo, a biracial boy from New York City, and Kenneth, an artist suffering from the ravages of AIDS.
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The Rules of Survival
Nancy Werlin
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.
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The Running Dream
Wendelin Van Draanen
Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run? As she struggles to cope with crutches and a first cyborg-like prosthetic, Jessica feels oddly both in the spotlight and invisible. People who don't know what to say, act like she's not there. Which she could handle better if she weren't now keenly aware that she'd done the same thing herself to a girl with CP named Rosa. A girl who is going to tutor her through all the math she's missed. A girl who sees right into the heart of her. With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her track teammates, Jessica may actually be able to run again. But that's not enough for her now. She doesn't just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her.
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The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly
Stephanie Oakes
A handless teen escapes from a cult, only to find herself in juvenile detention and suspected of knowing who murdered her cult leader.
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The Same Stuff as Stars
Katherine Paterson
When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.
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The Saturday Boy
David Fleming
If there's one thing I've learned from comic books, it's that everybody has a weakness--something that can totally ruin their day without fail. For the wolfman it's a silver bullet. For Superman it's Kryptonite. For me it was a letter. With one letter, my dad was sent back to Afghanistan to fly Apache helicopters for the U.S. army. Now all I have are his letters. Ninety-one of them to be exact. I keep them in his old plastic lunchbox--the one with the cool black car on it that says Knight Rider
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The Science of Breakable Things
Tae Keller
Middle schooler Natalie's year-long assignment to answer a question using the scientific process leads to truths about her mother's depression and her own cultural identity.
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The Secret Ingredient
Stewart Lewis
After a chance meeting with a psychic, Olivia, a teen cook living in Los Angeles with her two dads and misfit brother, finds a vintage cookbook with handwritten notes inside and pieces together a story that turns a normal summer into a search for her birth mother.
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The Secret Life of Prince Charming
Deb Caletti
Seventeen-year-old Quinn has heard all her life about how untrustworthy men are, so when she discovers that her charismatic but selfish father, with whom she has recently begun to have a tentative relationship, has stolen from the many women in his life, she decides she must avenge this wrong.
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The Secret's Out (Amy Hodgepodge, #5)
Kim Wayans Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Can a secret break up the friendship of five fourth-grade girls and prevent them from finishing an art project?
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These Dreams of You
Steve Erickson
The election of the country's first black president prompts failed novelist Zan Nordhoc and his wife to solve the mystery surrounding their adopted black daughter's life, an epic journey that helps a struggling family salvage its bonds.
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The Seeds of Friendship
Michael Foreman
A powerful fable about friendship transforming the world from the award-winning and internationally best-selling illustrator Michael Foreman.
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The Side Door
Jan Donley
When Mel becomes obsessed with Alex Weber's death, she finds trouble with her peers and confronts a world of adult secrecy and deception.
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The Sissy Duckling
Harvey Fierstein
Elmer the duck is teased because he is different, but he proves himself by not only surviving the winter, but also saving his Papa.
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The Skin I'm In
Sharon Flake
Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.
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The Skin You Live In
Michael Tyler
Rhyming text and illustrations celebrate being content with the skin in which one lives, whatever that skin might be.
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The Someday Birds
Sally J. Pla
Charlie, twelve, who has autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, must endure a cross-country trip with his siblings and a strange babysitter to visit their father, who will undergo brain surgery.