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 Sorta Sisters
Adrian Fogelin
In Florida, Anna Casey lives with what she hopes is the last in a long line of foster mothers, and Mica Delano lives with her father on their small boat, and when the two of them begin corresponding, they discover they have a lot in common.
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The Spider King's Daughter
Chibundu Onuzo
Seventeen-year-old Abike Johnson is the favourite child of her wealthy father. She lives in a sprawling mansion in Lagos, protected by armed guards. A world away from Abike's mansion, in the city's slums, lives a hawker trying to support his family by selling ice cream from the side of the road.
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The Star: A Story to Help Young Children Understand Foster Care
Cynthia Miller Lovell
The Star: A Story to Help Young Children Understand Foster Care is an easy-to-read, short story with beautiful, watercolor illustrations. The book follows a fictional young girl, Kit, who is taken from her mother to the safety, and different world, of a foster home. On Kit's first night in foster care, she becomes friends with a star outside her bedroom window. The star tells Kit about other foster children it has seen. Through the story, the star is a source of comfort for Kit as she experiences many emotions and adjusts to all the new things in her foster home.
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The Stars at Oktober Bend
Glenda Millard
Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone. Something inside Alice is broken: she remembers words but struggles to speak them. Still, Alice knows words are for sharing, so she pins them to posters in tucked-away places: railway waiting rooms, fish-and-chip shops, quiet corners. Manny is sixteen, with a scar from shoulder to elbow. Something inside Manny is broken: he was once a child soldier, forced to do terrible, violent things. But in a new land with new people who will care for him, he spends time exploring on foot. And in his pocket, he carries a poem he scooped up. And he knows the words by heart. When Manny and Alice meet, their relationship brings the beginning of love and healing.
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The Storm
Marc Harshman
Though confined to a wheelchair, Johnathan faces the terror of a tornado all by himself and saves the lives of the horses on the family farm. Full-color illustrations.
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The Stranger and the Red Rooster / El forastero y el gallo rojo
Víctor Villaseñor and Gabriela Baeza Ventura
When a tall, thin stranger with a horribly scarred face comes to Carlbad, California, everyone is afraid of him until he and his big red rooster make them laugh.
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The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles)
Amy Spalding
A summer of first love, fashion, friendship, and cheeseburgers.
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The Summer of Riley
Eve Bunting
Eleven-year-old William never needed a friend more than now. After his parents' separation, his father's new engagement, and his grandfather's dying without any warning -- adopting big, beautiful Riley is the first thing in a long time that has made him feel better. That is, until Riley innocently chases a horse. Local law states that any animal that chases livestock must be put to sleep. Suddenly William stands to lose another thing close to him. Together with his "totally unsurpassed" friend Grace, William begins a campaign to reverse the county commissioners' decision. But with a community divided on the issue, and the bully Ellis Porter trying to stop them at every turn, will they be able to save Riley's life? Celebrated author Eve Bunting shows William's determined struggle to fight for what he believes in. The Summer of Riley is an inspiring novel about learning to accept life's changes, the healing power of friendship, and the unending desire to protect those we love.
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The Summer of the Gypsy Moths
Sara Pennypacker
A foster child named Angel and twelve-year-old Stella, who are living with Stella's great-aunt Louise at the Linger Longer Cottage Colony on Cape Cod, secretly assume responsibility for the vacation rentals when Louise unexpectedly dies and the girls are afraid of being returned to the foster care system.
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The Sweet Life of Stella Madison
Lara M. Zeises
Seventeen-year-old Stella struggles with the separation of her renowned chef parents, writing a food column for the local paper even though she is a junk food addict, and having a boyfriend but being attracted to another.
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The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door
Karen Finneyfrock
Fourteen-year-old Celia, hurt by her parents' separation, the loss of her only friend, and a classmate's cruelty, has only her poetry for solace until newcomer Drake Berlin befriends her, comes out to her, and seeks her help in connecting with the boy he left behind.
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The Table Where Rich People Sit
Byrd Baylor
A girl discovers that her impoverished family is rich in things that matter in life, especially being outdoors and experiencing nature.
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The Tales of Zebedy-Do-Dah
Georgina Crawford
Curious, clever puppy-dog Zebedy-do-dah gets into mischief. Lost at a crowded country fair she meets all sorts of dogs' and finally is reunited with her family.
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The Tangerine Tree
Regina Hanson
Ida is heartbroken when Papa has to leave Jamaica to work in America, but she knows that he needs her to care for the tangerine tree in their yard, and he promises to return before it blooms again.
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The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
Lisa See
A thrilling new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See explores the lives of a Chinese mother and her daughter who has been adopted by an American couple. Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate--the first automobile any of them have seen--and a stranger arrives. In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced the Yao people to her readers. Here she shares the customs of another Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city. After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley's happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family's destiny for generations. A powerful story about a family, separated by circumstances, culture, and distance, Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond that connects mothers and daughters.
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The Teddy Bear
David McPhail
A teddy bear, lost by the little boy who loves him, still feels loved after being rescued by a homeless man.
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The Thunder in His Head
Gene Gant
Kyle, a gay sixteen-year-old has troubles. His parents are divorcing, he's attracted to his mother's new boyfriend and he's just met Dwight whose life is even more complicated than his.
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The Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish
Claudia Mills
While dealing with her parents' separation and her best friend's distance, Amanda is able to work out some of her anxiety through her fifth-grade project--writing a diary from the point of view of a ten-year-old girl whose brothers fight on opposite sides in the Civil War.
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The Trouble with Babies
Martha Freeman
Nine-year-old Holly tries to adjust to a new home with a neighbor who has just invented a de-yukkification device.
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The Trouble with Cats
Martha Freeman
After a difficult first week of third grade, Holly begins to adjust to her new school and living in her new stepfather's tiny apartment with his four cats.
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The Truly Brave Princesses
Dolores Brown
Princess Nin is a firefighter, Princess Gilda is a supermarket cashier, Princess Agnes is retired, and Princess Liang is in a wheel chair. This gallery of princesses gives visibility to lot of women who do not fit with the traditional conception of a princess. Maybe it’s time to realize that each and every one of us could be a princess.
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The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle
Leslie Connor
Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason’s learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason’s best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can’t understand why Lieutenant Baird won’t believe the story Mason has told about that day. Both Mason and his new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky, are relentlessly bullied by the other boys in their neighborhood, so they create an underground haven for themselves. When Calvin goes missing, Mason finds himself in trouble again. He’s desperate to figure out what happened to Calvin and, eventually, Benny. But will anyone believe him?
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The Tummy Mummy
Michelle Madrid-Branch
The true love that inspires adoption is revealed as a birthmother opens her heart, while adoptive parents open their arms for a child.
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The Ugly Menorah
Marissa Moss
For the first time since her grandfather's death, Rachel feels close to him as she and her grandmother celebrate Hanukkah with the simple menorah that he had made many years ago.
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The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B
Teresa Toten
Adam not only is trying to understand his OCD, while trying to balance his relationship with his divorced parents, but he's also trying to navigate through the issues that teenagers normally face, namely the perils of young love--