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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Two Mrs. Gibsons
Toyomi Igus
The biracial daughter of an African American father and a Japanese mother fondly recalls growing up with her mother and her father's mother, two very different but equally loving women.
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Two Naomis
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Audrey Vernick
Other than their first names, Naomi Marie and Naomi Edith are sure they have nothing in common, and they wouldn't mind keeping it that way. Naomi Marie starts clubs at the library and adores being a big sister. Naomi Edith loves quiet Saturdays and hanging with her best friend in her backyard. And while Naomi Marie's father lives a few blocks away, Naomi Edith wonders how she's supposed to get through each day a whole country apart from her mother. When Naomi Marie's mom and Naomi Edith's dad get serious about dating, each girl tries to cling to the life she knows and loves. Then their parents push them into attending a class together, where they might just have to find a way to work with each other--and maybe even join forces to find new ways to define family.
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Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath
Steven Goldman
Mitch, a shy and awkward high school junior, negotiates the difficult social situations he encounters, both with girls and with his best friend David, after David reveals to him that he is gay.
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Two White Rabbits
Jairo Buitrago and Elisa Amado
A young child describes what it is like to be a migrant as she and her father travel north toward the U.S. border. They travel mostly on the roof of a train known as The Beast, but the little girl doesn't know where they are going. She counts the animals by the road, the clouds in the sky, the stars. Sometimes she sees soldiers. She sleeps, dreaming that she is always on the move, although sometimes they are forced to stop and her father has to earn more money before they can continue their journey.
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Tyler Buckspan
Jere' M. Fishback
Fifteen-year-old Tyler Buckspan lives with his mom and grandmother in 1960s Cassadaga, a Florida community where spiritual "mediums" ply their trade. The mediums--Tyler's grandmother among them--read palms and tarot cards, conduct seances and speak with the dead. Tyler's a loner, a bookish boy with few interests, until his half-brother Devin, nineteen and a convicted arsonist, comes to live in Tyler's home. For years, Tyler has ignored his attraction to other boys. But with Devin in the house, Tyler can't deny his urges any longer. He falls hopelessly in love with his miscreant half-brother, and with the sport of basketball, once Devin teaches Tyler the finer points of the game. In a time when love between men was forbidden, even criminalized, can Tyler find the love he needs from another boy? And is Devin a person to be trusted? Is he truly clairvoyant, or simply a con artist playing Tyler and others for fools? What does Devin really know about a local murder? And can Tyler trust his own psychic twinges?
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Tyrell
Coe Booth
An astonishing new voice in teen literature, writing what is sure to be one of the most talked-about debuts of the year. Tyrell is a young African-American teen who can't get a break. He's living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. His father's in jail. His girlfriend supports him, but he doesn't feel good enough for her? and seems to be always on the verge of doing the wrong thing around her. There's another girl at the homeless shelter who is also after him, although the desires there are complicated. Tyrell feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his father's footsteps?
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Unbecoming
Jenny Downham
Life has just become very complicated for seventeen-year-old Katie; her father walked out a year ago, her mother is stressed out, her brother is a "special needs" teenager, and she is caring for the maternal grandmother she has never met, who is suffering from Alzheimer's--and Katie has a secret of her own that she cannot reveal.
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Unbelievably Boring Bart
James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski
Invisible creatures are attacking the school and 12-year-old Bartholomew Bean is the only one who can stop them! Okay, so maybe Bart is only a hero in the video game app he created. But if he reveals his identity as the genius behind the game, he'll become the most popular kid in school! Or he could secretly use the game to get back at his bullies. Press Button A- Reveal. Press Button B- Revenge. Which would you choose?
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Unbroken
Marieke Nijkamp
This anthology explores disability in fictional tales told from the viewpoint of disabled characters, written by disabled creators. With stories in various genres about first loves, friendship, war, travel, and more, Unbroken will offer today's teen readers a glimpse into the lives of disabled people in the past, present, and future.
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Uncle Aiden
Laurel Dykstra
The chrming story of why every little girl needs a gay uncle! Anna Maria and her Uncle Aiden share their love of pretty things, tea parties and baseball - but most of all they share their love of each other.
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Uncle Bobby's Wedding
Sarah S. Brannen
Chloë is jealous and sad when her favorite uncle announces that he will be getting married, but as she gets to know Jamie better and becomes involved in planning the wedding, she discovers that she will always be special to Uncle Bobby--and to Uncle Jamie, too.
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Uncle What-Is-It is Coming to Visit!!
Michael Willhoite
Igor and Tiffany have never met their homosexual uncle who is coming to visit, and become concerned when some of the older kids try to scare them with gay stereotypes.
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Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen
DyAnn DiSalvo-Ryan
A boy spends the day with Uncle Willie in the soup kitchen where he works preparing and serving food for the hungry.
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Under a Painted Sky
Stacey Lee
All Samantha wanted was to move back to New York and pursue her music, which was difficult enough being a Chinese girl in Missouri, 1849. Then her fate takes a turn for the worse after a tragic accident leaves her with nothing and she breaks the law in self-defense. With help from Annamae, a runaway slave she met at the scene of her crime, the two flee town for the unknown frontier. But life on the Oregon Trail is unsafe for two girls. Disguised as Sammy and Andy, two boys heading for the California gold rush, each search for a link to their past and struggle to avoid any unwanted attention. Until they merge paths with a band of cowboys turned allies, and Samantha can’t stop herself from falling for one. But the law is closing in on them and new setbacks come each day, and the girls will quickly learn there are not many places one can hide on the open trail.
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Under Rose-Tainted Skies
Louise Gornall
Norah has agoraphobia and OCD. When groceries are left on the porch, she can't step out to get them. Struggling to snag the bags with a stick, she meets Luke. He's sweet and funny, and he just caught her fishing for groceries. Because of course he did. Norah can't leave the house, but can she let someone in? As their friendship grows deeper, Norah realizes Luke deserves a normal girl. One who can lie on the front lawn and look up at the stars. One who isn't so screwed up. Can she let him go, or will she find the strength to face her demons?
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Under the Lights (Daylight Falls, #2)
Dahlia Adler
As Vanessa confronts her emerging feelings for her handler, Bri, her co-star Josh confronts his realization that the Hollywood scene might not really be his cup of tea.
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Under the Mesquite
Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Throughout her high school years, as her mother battles cancer, Lupita takes on more responsibility for her house and seven younger siblings, while finding refuge in acting and writing poetry.
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Under the Wolf, Under the Dog
Adam Rapp
Sixteen-year-old Steve struggles to make sense of his mother's terminal breast cancer and his brother's suicide.
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Uniquely Wired
Julia Cook
Zak knows he's not quite like his siblings and classmates. Bright lights and big crowds send him into freak-out mode. Hugs make him uncomfortable, too. His atypical behaviors, from flapping his arms to spinning his body, seem so out of place. But for Zak, that's just how he copes. Despite some peculiar behaviors, Zak's desires and disappointments are as ordinary as any child's. He loves watches; he hates being excluded. As Zak embraces life the only way he knows how, he teaches those around him important lessons about fairness, patience, curiosity, and independence.
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Unleashed
Sigmund Brouwer
Jace has taken up boxing on the wrong side of the tracks as he prepares to seek vengeance on his abusive father with two other teen vigilantes.
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Unplugged: Ella Gets Her Family Back
Laura Pedersen
Upset that her family is so focused on the screens on their various electronic devices that they no longer talk, laugh, and play games together, Ella takes all of their chargers and small devices.
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Unreachable
Katie Leone
Janice Rosenthal is entering her eighth year of teaching, but it might be her last. Never before has she had a student as unruly and insubordinate as this one. Andrew Bryant is the terror of seventh grade, a student known for driving teachers to the edge of retirement, and he is in her class. How can Janice--and the rest of her students--make it through the school year with such a disruptive force in the classroom? Her only hope is to try to break through the orphan's defenses, to pierce a wall that no other teacher has ever scratched. When she discovers Andrew's secret, two lives will be changed forever.
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Valentine to a Flying Mouse
Laura Hawkins
During preparations for the fourth grade Valentine party, Tammy meets the wheelchair-bound owner of the local bookstore who helps her learn to cope with her parents' separation and to believe in herself.
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Vanishing Colors
Constance Orbeck Nilssen
As a young girl and her mother take shelter for the night in their war-torn city, the whole world appears muted and dark. When the girl wakes in the middle of the night to find a bird watching her, she knows it’s the one from her mother’s stories, who flies down from the mountains to protect people from harm. She tells the bird what her what her life used to be like, before the war and destruction—she describes her favorite dress, the open market stalls, her dad playing music on the roof. As she continues to remember, colors slowly seep back into her life, and with them comes the courage to hope for a new beginning.
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Vengeance Road
Erin Bowman
When Kate Thompson’s father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the eighteen-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.