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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Black, White, Just Right!
Marguerite W. Davol
A girl explains how her parents differ in color, tastes in art and food, and pet preferences, and how she herself is different too but just right.
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Blended
Sharon M. Draper
Piano-prodigy Isabella, eleven, whose black father and white mother struggle to share custody, never feels whole, especially as racial tensions affect her school, her parents both become engaged, and she and her stepbrother are stopped by police.
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Blood Family
Anne Fine
A boy with an abusive father grows up and fears that he has the same potential for violence as his father has.
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Bloodline
Joe Jimenez
Seventeen-year-old Abraham is in love, but his girlfriend and the grandmother who raised him are worried about his fighting, and things only get worse when his uncle introduces him to boxing.
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Blue Boy
Rakesh Satyal
Satyal's lovely coming-of-age debut charts an Indian-American boy's transformation from mere mortal to Krishnaji, the blue-skinned Hindu deity. Twelve-year-old Kiran Sharma's a bit of an outcast: he likes ballet and playing with his mother's makeup. He also reveres his Indian heritage and convinces himself that the reason he's having trouble fitting in is because he's actually the 10th reincarnation of Krishnaji. He plans to come out to the world at the 1992 Martin Van Buren Elementary School talent show, and much of the book revels in his comical preparations as he creates his costume, plays the flute and practices his dance moves to a Whitney Houston song. But as the performance approaches, something strange happens: Kiran's skin begins to turn blue. Satyal writes with a graceful ease, finding new humor in common awkward pre-teen moments and giving readers a delightful and lively young protagonist.
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Blue is the Warmest Color
Julie Maroh
Blue is the Warmest Color is a graphic novel about growing up, falling in love, and coming out. Clementine, a high school student, has an average life: she has friends, family, and the romantic attention of the boys in her school. When her openly gay best friend takes her out on the town, she wanders into a lesbian bar where she encounters Emma: a punkish, confident girl with blue hair. Their attraction is instant and electric, and Clementine finds herself in a relationship that will test her friends, parents, and her own ideas about herself and her identity.
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Bobby the Brave (Sometimes)
Lisa Yee
Fourth-grader Bobby is hurt when he hears his father, a former professional football player, say that the two of them are nothing alike, but finally summons the courage to talk about it after he suffers a public asthma attack.
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Bonjour, Lonnie
Faith Ringgold
An African-American Jewish boy traces his ancestry with the help of the Love Bird of Paris.
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Boo's Beard
Rose Mannering
New friends and a dog named Boo help an autistic child learn how to read facial expressions.
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Box Girl
Sarah Withrow
Gwen, confident her mother who ran away five years earlier is going to return soon and take her to live in France, decides not to make any friends, but her plans fall through when Clara, a new eighth-grader, insists on being friends, and together the two sort out their place with friends, school, and family.
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Boyfriends with Girlfriends
Alex Sanchez
When Lance begins to date Sergio, who's bisexual, he's not sure that it'll work out, and when his best friend Allie, who has a boyfriend, meets Sergio's lesbian friend, she has unexpected feelings which she struggles to understand.
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Boy Meets Boy
David Levithan
Love is never easy. Especially if you're Paul. He's a sophomore at a high school like no other, and these are his friends: Infinite Darlene, the homecoming queen and star quarterback; Joni, Paul's best friend who may not be his best friend anymore; Tony, his other best friend, who can't leave the house unless his parents think he's going on a date...with a girl; Kyle, the ex-boyfriend who won't go away; Rip, the school bookie, who sets the odds...and Noah, the boy. The one who changes everything.
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Brave Like Me
Barbara Kerley
When someone is serving our country, far from home, everyone in their family has to be brave. Including -- and sometimes especially -- the kids. This book speaks to all kids in this situation in telling the story of a boy and a girl with parents away on duty. It captures the children's worries, fears, trials, and triumphs while waiting for their parents to return from service. Although the narrative tells one universal tale, the photographs depict multiple perspectives so that every reader has someone they can relate to. In the end, each child finds the strength and patience to endure the wait, showing admirable bravery and inspiring us all. An afterword looks further at the meaning of bravery and offers resources for helping kids deal with transition, deployment, and separation.
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Bread Song
Frederick Lipp
Hoping to make Chamnan, a seven-year-old immigrant from Thailand, feel more at home, the owner of a Portland, Maine, bakery invites him and his grandfather to hear her bread sing.
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Breakfast for Dinner
Cynthia DiLaura and M. D. Devore
Meg's world is turned upside-down when her parents separate but she comes to realize that they are divorcing each other, not her. Includes discussion questions.
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Breaking Out
Barthe DeClements
As thirteen-year-old Jerry enters junior high school, he continues to adjust to the fact that his father is in prison for theft. Sequel to "Five Finger Discount" and "Monkey See Monkey Do."
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Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment
Sundee Tucker Frazier
As biracial Brendan Buckley enters middle school, he deals with issues with his African American father, a new girl at school, and his changing friendship with his best friend.
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Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It
Sundee Tucker Frazier
Brendan Buckley, a biracial ten-year-old, applies his scientific problem-solving ability and newfound interest in rocks and minerals to connect with his white grandfather, the president of Puyallup Rock Club, and to learn why he and Brendan's mother are estranged.
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Brianna Breathes Easy: A story about Asthma
Virginia L. Kroll
Brianna gets the lead in the Thanksgiving school playshell be Hero the Hen! She almost forgets about the coughing and breathing trouble she's been having.Brianna loves practicing her leaping and flapping. But at the dress rehearsal, she has a bad coughing attack and feels a tightness in her chest. The teacher calls 911 and the paramedics take Brianna to the hospital. There, Dr. Anderson diagnoses Brianna with asthma. Brianna begins to learn about her disease and how to manage it. Things are soon under control, and she's back on stage for her debut!
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Brian's Bird
Patricia Anne Davis and Layne Johnson
Eight-year-old Brian, who is blind, learns how to take care of his new parakeet and comes to realize that his older brother, while sometimes careless, is not so bad after all.
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Bright Lights, Dark Nights
Stephen Edmond
Walter Wilcox's first love, Naomi, happens to be African American, so when Walter's policeman father is caught in a racial profiling scandal, the teens' bond and mutual love of the Foo Fighters may not be enough to keep them together through the pressures they face at school, at home, and online.
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Bringing Asha Home
Uma Krishnaswami
Eight-year-old Arun waits impatiently while international adoption paperwork is completed so that he can meet his new baby sister from India.
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Bronxwood
Coe Booth
Tyrell's life is spinning out of control after his father is released from prison, his little brother is placed in foster care, and the drug dealers he's living with are pressuring him to start dealing.
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Brooklyn Burning
Steve Brezenoff
When you're sixteen and no one understands who you are, sometimes the only choice left is to run. If you're lucky, you find a place that accepts you, no questions asked. And if you're really lucky, that place has a drum set, a place to practice, and a place to sleep. For Kid, the streets of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are that place. Over the course of two scorching summers, Kid falls hopelessly in love and then loses nearly everything and everyone worth caring about. But as summer draws to a close, Kid finally finds someone who can last beyond the sunset.
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Brown Like Me
Noelle Lamperti
A little girl named Noelle tells how she likes to go looking for things that are brown like her.