This collection contains materials on the topic of step-parent from the DIVerse Families bibliography. Step parent stories discuss the family dynamic when a parent remarries and brings a step parent into the family or when a step parent is already a part of the family. These stories often highlight how children and teenagers react in these situations and how they adjust to the new family norms.
Family relationships grow through the connections we create with the people in our lives. Your family can be made of blood or non-blood relatives, friends, or pets, or a combination of these. Diverse families and their relationships are slowly becoming the new norm and will only continue to grow as the world progresses.
Browse by Family Relationship:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Along for the ride : a novel
Sarah Dessen
It's been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents' divorce - or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live. A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town.
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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.
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A Place in the World
Malcolm Frierson
Set in Baltimore, Ghana, and rural Georgia, a novel of love, marriage, betrayal, divorce, discovery, African heritage, international adoption, racism, and tragedy unfolds. Kwame and Evelyn adopt Kofi whom they adore. After divorce and remarriage, their nationalistic and interracial families clash. Caught between households, Kofi strives to find himself and battles dangerous anxiety attacks.
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Ash
Malinda Lo
In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves.
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Bait
Alex Sanchez
Diego keeps getting into trouble because of his explosive temper until he finally finds a probation officer who helps him get to the root of his anger so that he can stop running from his past.
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Belle Prater's Boy
Ruth White
When Woodrow's mother suddenly disappears, he moves to his grandparents' home in a small Virginia town where he befriends his cousin and together they find the strength to face the terrible losses and fears in their lives. Everyone in Coal Station, Virginia, has a theory about what happened to Belle Prater, but twelve-year-old Gypsy wants the facts, and when her cousin Woodrow, Aunt Belle's son moves next door, she has her chance.
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Ben and the Sudden Too-Big Family
Colby Rodowsky
Until now, ten-year-old Ben has believed that life is made up of "all right" and "not all right" stuff, but when his father remarries and the couple adopts a Chinese baby, he wonders which kind of stuff will prevail.
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Binge
Tyler Oakley
Pop-culture phenomenon, social rights advocate, and the most prominent LGBTQ+ voice on YouTube, Tyler Oakley brings you Binge, his New York Times bestselling collection of witty, personal, and hilarious essays. For someone who made a career out of over-sharing on the Internet, Tyler has a shocking number of personal mishaps and shenanigans to reveal in his first book: experiencing a legitimate rage blackout in a Cheesecake Factory; negotiating a tense standoff with a White House official; crashing a car in front of his entire high school, in an Arby’s uniform; projectile vomiting while bartering with a grandmother; and so much more. In Binge, Tyler delivers his best untold, hilariously side-splitting moments with the trademark flair that made him a star.
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Bird Lake Moon
Ellen Hopkins
Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer's little brother drowned long ago, and as the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.
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Booker T. Washington (Biographies of Biracial Achievers)
Jim Whiting
Biography of the African American slave who was freed, got an education, and opened Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and devoted his life to black education.
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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....
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Chinese Handcuffs
Christ Crutcher
Dillon is living with the painful memory of his brother's suicide-and the role he played in it. To keep his mind and body occupied, he trains intensely for the Ironman triathlon. But outside of practice, his life seems to be falling apart. Then Dillon finds a confidante in Jennifer, a star high school basketball player who's hiding her own set of destructive secrets. Together, they must find the courage to confront their demons-before it's too late.
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Colt
Nancy Springer
A young boy with a crippling disease learns, through a horseback riding program, to overcome his own anxieties and to help others in dealing with their own problems.
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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.
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Dad and Pop: An Ode to Fathers and Stepfathers
Kelly Bennett
A little girl celebrates her two fathers, who are very different except in one very important way.
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Damsel Distressed
Kelsey Macke
A teen girl struggles with obesity, self-harm, and the infuriatingly perfect stepsister in her journey to overcome the stigmas put on her life, on her friendships, and on her future.
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Dark Silence
Maureen Crane Wartski
Randy wanted things to be the way they used to be, but her mother is dead, her father has remarried, they've moved to a new neighborhood and her first friend in it cuts her off for no reason that Randy can figure out.
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Dinosaurs Divorce: A Guide for Changing Families
Marc Brown and Laurene Krasny Brown
Text and illustrations of dinosaur characters introduce aspects of divorce such as its causes and effects, living with a single parent, spending holidays in two separate households, and adjusting to a stepparent.
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Double Act
Jacqueline Wilson
Ruby and Garnet are ten-year-old twins. They're identical, and they do everything together, especially since their mother died three years earlier - but they couldn't be more different. Bossy, bouncy, funny Ruby loves to take charge, while quiet, sensitive, academic Garnet loves nothing more than to curl up with one of her favourite books
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Eleanor & Park
Rainbown Rowell
Two misfits. One extraordinary love. Eleanor -- Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough -- Eleanor. Park -- He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises -- Park. Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds -- smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
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Excellent Emma
Sally Warner
Emma McGraw's third-grade class is getting ready for Winter Games Day, and Emma wants to win a prize more than anything. It would be the perfect way to make her father proud. But the rest of the class has mixed feelings about Winter Games Day. Jared is desperate to be the fastest runner and the farthest jumper, Fiona is worried about her weak ankles, and Annie Pat doesn't seem to care at all. When the big day arrives, nothing goes exactly as planned, but Emma is still determined to be as excellent as she can be.
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Fade to Us
Julia Day
Brooke's summer is going to be EPIC -- having fun with her friends and a job that lets her buy a car. Then her new stepfather announces his daughter is moving in. Brooke has always longed for a sibling, so she's excited about spending more time with her stepsister. But she worries, too. Natalie has Asperger's--and Brooke's not sure how to be the big sister that Natalie needs. After Natalie joins a musical theater program, Brooke sacrifices her job to volunteer for the backstage crew. She's mostly there for Natalie, but Brooke soon discovers how much she enjoys being part of the show. Especially sweet is the chance to work closely with charming and fascinating Micah--the production's stage manager. When her summer finally comes to an end, will Brooke finally have the family she so desperately wants--and the love she's only dreamed about?