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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What Momma Left Me
Renée Watson
After the death of their mother, thirteen-year-old Serenity Evans and her younger brother go to live with their grandparents, who try to keep them safe from bad influences and help them come to terms with what has happened to their family. Includes recipe for red velvet cake.
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What She Left Behind
Tracy Bilen
Sixteen-year-old Sara's mother goes missing before she and Sara can move to a new town to escape Sara's physically abusive father.
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What's Wrong with Timmy?
Maria Shriver
Making friends with a mentally retarded boy helps Kate learn that the two of them have a lot in common.
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What We Keep is Not Always What Will Stay
Amanda Cockrell
Angie never used to think much about God—until things started getting strange. Like the statue of St. Felix, her secret confidant, suddenly coming off his pedestal and talking to her. And Jesse Francis, sent home from Afghanistan at age nineteen with his leg blown off. Now he's expected to finish high school and fit right back in. Is God even paying attention to this? Against the advice of St. Felix (who knows a thing or two about war), Angie falls for Jesse—who's a lot deeper than most high school guys. But Jesse is battling some major demons. As his behavior starts to become unpredictable, and even dangerous, Angie finds herself losing control of the situation. And she's starting to wonder...can one person ever make things right for someone else?
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What Would Joey Do?
Jack Gantos
Joey's dad just roared into town on a motorcycle, his mom is chasing her ex-husband away with a broomstick, and his grandma's camped out on the couch behind a plastic shower curtain. What's more, Joey's chihuahua has been dognapped, and his mom insists that he be homeschooled with a mean blind girl and her super-religious mother. Welcome to Joey's world. With his new self-assumed role as "Mr. Helpful," Joey's on a mission to make everything and everyone better. Can Joey accomplish all this or will his wild, wired behavior spin him out of control all over again?
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When Aidan Became a Brother
Kyle Lukoff
When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl's room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of his life that didn't fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life. Then Mom and Dad announce that they're going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning--from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does "making things right" actually mean? And what happens if he messes up? With a little help, Aidan comes to understand that mistakes can be fixed with honesty and communication, and that he already knows the most important thing about being a big brother: how to love with his whole self.
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When Andy's Father Went to Prison
Martha Whitmore Hickman
When Andy's father is sent to prison for robbery and the family moves to be near him, Andy is afraid of what the kids at his new school will think.
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When Charley Met Emma
Amy Webb
Five-year-old Charley gets teased for daydreaming and drawing more than his friends, but when he meets Emma, who is physically different, he needs help remembering that being different is okay.
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When Christmas Feels Like Home
Gretchen Griffith
When his family moves from a small Mexican village to North Carolina, Eduardo asks how soon he will feel at home, and slowly his Tio Miguel's seemingly impossible replies come true until, at last, he can put out the Nativity scene he carved with his grandfather.
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When Dad Killed Mom
Julius Lester
When Jenna and Jeremey's father kills their artistic mother, they struggle to slowly rebuild a functioning family.
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When Dad Was Away
Karen Littlewood
When Milly's dad is sent to prison, she feels angry and confused. She can't believe her dad won't be at home to read her stories. But soon Mum takes Milly and her brother Sam to visit Dad in prison, and a week later a special package arrives at home - a CD of Milly's favourite animal stories, read especially for her by Dad.
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When Grown-Ups Fall in Love
Barbara Lynn Edmonds
This book is a sweet poem which shows families with mom and dad, two moms, and two dads. The large, colorful illustrations are great for group storytime or for one child sitting on your lap. Suitable for reading to children from newborns to 7-year-olds. The book also includes coloring pages as well as space for children to write their own family stories. Gay-friendly preschool literature is a long overdue resource for parents and teachers, both gay and straight. The author wants children with gay parents to feel included in the world of children's literature, and also wants to help straight parents provide their children with books which promote an appreciation of diversity.
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When Heaven Fell
Carolyn Marsden
When her grandmother reveals that the daughter that she had given up for adoption is coming from America to visit her Vietnamese family, nine-year-old Binh is convinced that her newly-discovered aunt is wealthy and will take care of all the family's needs.
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When I Met You: A Story of Russian Adoption
Adrienne Ehlert Bashista
A mother describes her daughter's life before and after she was adopted from Russia.
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When I Miss You
Cornelia Maude Spelman
A young guinea pig describes situations that make him miss his parents, how it feels to miss them, and what he can do to feel better.
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When Katie's Parents Separated
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
Katie learns that there are both good and bad things about her parents no longer living together.
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When Kayla was Kyle
Amy Fabrikant
Kyle doesn't understand why the other kids at school call him names. He looks like other boys, but doesn't feel like them. Can Kyle find the words to share his feelings about his gender -- and can his parents help him to transition into the girl he was born to be?
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When Molly Was in the Hospital
Debbie Duncan
Anna's little sister, Molly, has been very ill and had to have an operation. Anna tells us all about the experience from her point of view.
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When She Was Good
Norma Fox Mazer
The death of her abusive, manipulative older sister prompts seventeen-year-old Em to remember their unpleasant life together, with their parents and then later on their own.
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When the Black Girl Sings
Bil Wright
Adopted by white parents and sent to an exclusive Connecticut girls' school where she is the only black student, fourteen-year-old Lahni Schuler feels like an outcast, particularly when her parents separate, but after attending a local church where she hears gospel music for the first time, she finds her voice.
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When This World Was New
D. H. Figueredo
When his father leads him on a magical trip of discovery through new fallen snow, a young boy who emigrated from his warm island home overcomes fears about living in New York.
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When We Were Good
Suzanne Sutherland
The year 2000 isn't starting out too well for Toronto high school senior Katherine Boatman. Not only has her oldest friend ditched her for yet another boyfriend, her beloved grandmother died on New Year's Eve, leaving a void of goodness in her life that Katherine's not sure how to fill. While overwhelmed with sadness and self-doubt, Katherine unexpectedly finds new love, both for Toronto's underground music scene and for her would-be savior: a straight-edge, loudmouthed misfit named Marie.
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Where I Belong
Mary Downing Hahn
Eleven-year-old Brendan Doyle doesn't get along with his foster mother, he's failing fifth grade, and he's bullied mercilessly by a band of boys in his class. Then Brendan meets two potential friends--an eccentric old man and a girl from summer school--and he sees that there may be hope for him after all.
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Where's Lenny
Ken Wilson-Max
Lenny plays hide-and seek with daddy--but Daddy can't find him anywhere. Where's Lenny?