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.
Browse by Family Relationship:
Single Parent
-
Abby Spencer Goes To Bollywood
Varsha Bajaj
What thirteen year old Abby wants most is to meet her father. She just never imagined he would be a huge film star, in Bollywood! Now she's traveling to Mumbai to get to know her famous father. Abby is overwhelmed by the culture clash, the pressures of being the daughter of India's most famous celebrity, and the burden of keeping her identity a secret. But as she learns to navigate her new surroundings, she just might discover where she really belongs.
-
A Boy No More
Harry Mazer
After his father is killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Adam, his mother, and sister are evacuated from Hawaii to California, where he must deal with his feelings about the war, Japanese internment camps, his father, and his own identity.
-
A Chair for My Mother
Vera B. Williams
A child, her waitress mother, and her grandmother save dimes to buy a comfortable armchair after all their furniture is lost in a fire.
-
Adaptation
Malinda Lo
Flocks of birds are hurling themselves at aeroplanes across America. Thousands of people die. On Reese's long drive home, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won't tell them what happened. For Reese, though, this is just the start. She can't remember anything from the time between her accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: she's different now. Torn between longtime crush David and new girl Amber, the real question is: who can she trust?
-
Adopted like Me: My Book of Adopted Heroes
Ann Angel
Adopted Like Me is a children's picture book that tells the stories of famous and inspirational people, all of whom were adopted. Read about great musicians like Bo Diddley, politicians like Nelson Mandela, stars like Marilyn Monroe as well as inventors, athletes, a princess skilled in judo and fencing, and many more.
-
A Family is a Family is a Family
Sara O'Leary
When a teacher asks the children in her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different in many ways -- but the same in the one way that matters most of all. One child is worried that her family is just too different to explain, but listens as her classmates talk about what makes their families special. One is raised by a grandmother, and another has two dads. One is full of stepsiblings, and another has a new baby.
-
A Father Like That
Charlotte Zolotow
A young boy shares with his mother his daydreams about the father who left before he was born.
-
After the Fall
Kate Hart
Told from two viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Raychel relies on the support of her overachieving best friend Matt while secretly sleeping with his brother Andrew, and Matt tries to play hero and hide how much he loves her.
-
After Tupac & D Foster
Jacqueline Woodson
In the New York City borough of Queens in 1996, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur's music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.
-
A Heart in a Body in the World
Deb Caletti
When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? From Seattle to Washington, DC, Annabelle is running through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She's not ready to think about the why yet, just the how - muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can't outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person - The Taker - that haunts her. Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appointed publicity team), Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to the trauma from her past. Her cross-country run gains media attention and she is cheered on as she crosses state borders, even thrown a block party and given gifts. The support would be nice, if Annabelle could escape the guilt and shame from what happened back home. They say it isn't her fault, but she can't feel the truth of that. Through welcome and unwelcome distractions, she just keep running to the destination that awaits her. There, she'll finally face the miles of love and loss behind her...and what still lies ahead.
-
A Lei for Tutu
Rebecca Nevers Fellows
Nahoa loves making leis with her grandmother and looks forward to helping her create a special one for Lei Day, until her grandmother becomes very ill.
-
Alex As Well
Alyssa Brugman
Alex has turned vegetarian, changed schools, stopped taking her medications, and created a new identity. An identity that shakes her world. And Alex - the other Alex - has a lot to say about it.
-
A List of Cages
Robin Roe
When Adam Blake lands the best elective ever in his senior year, serving as an aide to the school psychologist, he thinks he's got it made. Sure, it means a lot of sitting around, which isn't easy for a guy with ADHD, but he can't complain, since he gets to spend the period texting all his friends. Then the doctor asks him to track down the troubled freshman who keeps dodging her, and Adam discovers that the boy is Julian; the foster brother he hasn't seen in five years.
-
A Little Friendly Advice
Siobhan Vivian
Ruby is on the verge of turning sixteen. Her friends have been planning her party for weeks. They all have gathered at her house for a pre-party. Her mom has made her favorite dinner - ziti. All is perfect, down to the vintage Polaroid camera her mother has given her. Then it turns horribly wrong. With the ring of the doorbell, her father, who has been gone for years, has come back into her life.
-
All Families are Different
Sol Gordon and Vivien Cohen
Discusses differences in families in today's society, as well as what makes each family special.
-
All Families are Special
Norma Simon
Students in Mrs. Mack's class describe their families--big or small, living together or apart, with two moms or none--and learn why every family is special and important.
-
All My Stripes: A Story for Children with Autism
Shaina Rudolph and Danielle Royer
Zane rushes home to tell his mother about problems he faced during his school day, and she reminds him that while others may only see his "autism stripe," he has stripes for honesty, caring, and much more.
-
Almost Perfect
Brian Katcher
With his mother working long hours and in pain from a romantic break-up, eighteen-year-old Logan feels alone and unloved until a zany new student arrives at his small-town Missouri high school, keeping a big secret.
-
A Long Way Home
Saroo Brierley
An account of the author's inspirational effort to find his India birthplace describes how he was accidentally separated from his family in the mid-1980s, his survival on the streets of Calcutta, his adoption by an Australian family, and his headline-making Google Earth search.
-
Also Known as Harper
Ann Haywood Leal
Writing poetry helps fifth-grader Harper Lee Morgan cope with her father's absence, being evicted, and having to skip school to care for her brother while their mother works, and things look even brighter after she befriends a mute girl and a kindly disabled woman.
-
And She Was
Jessica Verdi
When Dara finds her birth certificate, she is puzzled to find two strange names on it, but when her mother, Mellie, reveals that she is transgender and transitioned when Dara's biological mother died soon after Dara's birth, Dara is stunned and angry--and she sets off with her friend Sam, in search of the grandparents she never knew existed (and who may be able to fund her tennis career), and the family secrets she can only guess at.
-
And Then There Were Four
Nancy Werlin
When five high school students are brought together under mysterious circumstances, they begin to piece together a theory that their parents are working together to kill them all.
-
Angel's Grace
Tracey Baptiste
While visiting her grandmother in Trinidad, thirteen-year-old Grace sees a photograph of a stranger with a birthmark identical to hers, and begins to wonder if the reason she feels different from the rest of her family is that he is her real father.
