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.

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Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Ibi Zoboi

Edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi and featuring some of the most acclaimed best-selling black authors writing for teens today - Black Enough is an essential collection of captivating stories about what it's like to be young and black in America.
Blood Water Paint

Joy McCullough

In Renaissance Italy, Artemisia Gentileschi endures the subjugation of women that allows her father to take credit for her extraordinary paintings, rape and the ensuing trial, and torture, buoyed by her deceased mother's stories of strong women of the Bible.
Boats for Papa

Jessixa Bagley

Buckley and his Mama live in a cozy cabin by the ocean. He loves to carve boats out of the driftwood he finds on the beach nearby. He makes: big boats long boats short boats and tall boats, each one more beautiful than the last, and sends them out to sea. If they don't come back, he knows they've found their way to his papa, whom he misses very much.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah

Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life....
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.
Breadcrumbs

Anne Ursu

Hazel and Jack are best friends until an accident with a magical mirror and a run-in with a villainous queen find Hazel on her own, entering an enchanted wood in the hopes of saving Jack's life.
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.
By the Dawn's Early Light

Karen Ackerman

A young girl and her brother stay with their grandmother while their mother works at night.
Camo Girl

Kekla Magoon

Ella, a biracial girl with a patchy and uneven skin tone, and her friend Z, a boy who is very different, have been on the bottom of the social order at Caldera Junior High School in Las Vegas, but when the only other African-American student enters their sixth grade class, Ella longs to be friends with him and join the popular group, but does not want to leave Z all alone.
Caraval

Stephanie Garber

Welcome, welcome to Caraval--Stephanie Garber's sweeping tale of two sisters who escape their ruthless father when they enter the dangerous intrigue of a legendary game. Scarlett has never left the tiny island where she and her beloved sister Tella live with their powerful and cruel, father. Now Scarlett's father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval, the far-away, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show, are over. But this year, Scarlett's long-dreamt of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval's mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season's Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner. Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. But she nevertheless becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic with the other players in the game. And whether Caraval is real or not, she must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over, a dangerous domino effect of consequences is set off, and her sister disappears forever.
Caterpillar Summer

Gillian McDunn

Since her father's death, Cat has taken care of her brother, Chicken, for their hardworking mother but while spending time with grandparents they never knew, Cat has the chance to be a child again.
Celebrating Families

Rosemarie Hausherr

Presents brief descriptions of many different kinds of families, both traditional and non-traditional.
Children of Blood and Bone

Tomi Adeyemi

Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.
Coda

Emma Trevayne

Ever since he was a young boy, music has coursed through the veins of eighteen-year-old Anthem; the Corp has certainly seen to that. By encoding music with addictive and mind-altering elements, the Corp holds control over all citizens, particularly conduits like Anthem, whose life energy feeds the main power in the Grid. Anthem finds hope and comfort in the twin siblings he cares for, even as he watches the life drain slowly and painfully from his father. Escape is found in his underground rock band, where music sounds free, clear, and unencoded deep in an abandoned basement. But when a band member dies suspiciously from a tracking overdose, Anthem knows that his time has suddenly become limited. Revolution all but sings in the air, and Anthem cannot help but answer the call with the chords of choice and free will. But will the girl he loves help or hinder him? Emma Trevayne's dystopian debut novel is a little punk, a little rock, and plenty page-turning.
Coming on Home Soon

Jacqueline Woodson

After Mama takes a job in Chicago during World War II, Ada Ruth stays with Grandma but misses her mother who loves her more than rain and snow.
Compromised

Heidi Ayarbe

With her con-man father in prison, fifteen-year-old Maya sets out from Reno, Nevada, for Boise, Idaho, hoping to stay out of foster care by finding an aunt she never knew existed, but a fellow runaway complicates all of her scientifically-devised plans.
Cookies and Cake & the Families we Make

Jennifer L. Egan

A book about exposure and acceptance of the diverse families that are part of our society: single parents, multiracial parents, two moms, two dads, one of each or even an unrelated guardian. Those families who may at first seem different are quite similar, because what really matters is the love and care they give to their children. The author uses the metaphor of the different cakes and cookies we can bake to help young readers respect, accept and welcome diversity.
Coolies

Yin .

A young boy hears the story of his great-great-great-grandfather and his brother who came to the United States to make a better life for themselves helping to build the transcontinental railroad.
Cut Both Ways

Carrie Mesrobian

Senior Will Caynes must face unsettling feelings for his best friend Angus after they share a drunken kiss, while also embarking on his first real relationship with sophomore Brandy--all as the burden of home-life troubles weigh heavily.
Dad By My Side

Soosh .

A child celebrates a close connection with her father, from how they play together and teach each other new things to how he protects her and always makes time for her.
Dark Water

Laura McNeal

Living in a cottage on her uncle's southern California avocado ranch since her parent's messy divorce, fifteen-year-old Pearl Dewitt meets and falls in love with an illegal migrant worker, and is trapped with him when wildfires approach his makeshift forest home.
Daughter of the Burning City

Amanda Foody

Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel, and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the festival's freak show. But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that--illusions, and not truly real. Or so she has always believed--until one of them is murdered. Sorina must find the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn't exist. Her search leads her to the gossip-worker Luca, and their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance into sinister corners of the festival. But as the killer continues to murder Sorina's illusions, she must get to the horrifying truth before all her loved ones disappear.
Dear Child

John Farrell

Simple text and illustrations of diverse families show how children affect their loved ones for the better.
Dear Martin

Nic Stone

Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.
Dear Santa, Please Come to the 19th Floor

Yin .

Willy and Carlos, who is in a wheelchair, receive a visit from Santa on Christmas Eve, even though they live on the nineteenth floor of their building.