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:
Step Parent
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The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to His Death and Lands in California
Mary Hershey
Alastair, a thirteen-year-old who calls himself "Stump" because of his amputated leg, must face a summer at his wealthy but estranged father's beach house in Los Angeles, where he meets his stepmother, falls in love with a teenaged soap opera star, and decides to train for a race with a former Olympic swim coach.
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The Other Side of Dark
Sarah Smith
Since losing both of her parents, fifteen-year-old Katie can see and talk to ghosts, which makes her a loner until fellow student Law sees her drawing of a historic house and together they seek a treasure rumored to be hidden there by illegal slave-traders.
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The Possibility of Somewhere
Julia Day
Although on opposite sides of every social hierarchy their friends and families can imagine, including race, class, and social status, popular Ash Gupta, the son of wealthy, immigrant Asian-Indian parents, and anti-social Eden Moore, whose biggest goal is to escape her family's poverty and trailer-park existence, grow close as they compete to become class valedictorian.
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There's Only One of Me!
Pat Hutchins
Daughter Sister Half-sister Stepdaughter Stepsister Cousin Niece Granddaughter Great-Granddaughter There are so many things to be when the relatives are coming to your birthday party But sometimes the best thing of all is to be a birthday girl. Oh, happy birthday
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The Ring Bearer
Floyd Cooper
Jackson's mom is getting married, and Jackson is nervous about his role and his new family.
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The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2)
Rick Riordan
Demigod Percy Jackson, still with no memory, and his new friends from Camp Jupiter, Hazel and Frank, go on a quest to free Death, but their bigger task is to unite the Greek and Roman camps so that the Prophecy of Seven can be fulfilled.
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The Trouble with Babies
Martha Freeman
Nine-year-old Holly tries to adjust to a new home with a neighbor who has just invented a de-yukkification device.
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The Trouble with Cats
Martha Freeman
After a difficult first week of third grade, Holly begins to adjust to her new school and living in her new stepfather's tiny apartment with his four cats.
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The Truth or Something
Jeanne Willis
Growing up poor and neglected in post-World War II England, young Mick, longing to be part of a loving family as he is shuttled from home to home, must harden himself against disappointment and cruelty--and, finally, against the abusive father he only recently met.
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The Wall
William Sutcliffe
In an isolated town that closely resembles the West Bank, thirteen-year-old Joshua discovers that his world may not be as it seems; that his people may be aggressors rather than victims; and that he must stand up to his stepfather and forge his own sense of right and wrong.
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Touching Snow
M. Sindy Felin
After her stepfather is arrested for child abuse, thirteen-year-old Karina's home life improves but while the severity of her older sister's injuries and the urging of her younger sister, their uncle, and a friend tempt her to testify against him, her mother and other well-meaning adults pursuade her to claim responsibility.
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Two Naomis
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Audrey Vernick
Other than their first names, Naomi Marie and Naomi Edith are sure they have nothing in common, and they wouldn't mind keeping it that way. Naomi Marie starts clubs at the library and adores being a big sister. Naomi Edith loves quiet Saturdays and hanging with her best friend in her backyard. And while Naomi Marie's father lives a few blocks away, Naomi Edith wonders how she's supposed to get through each day a whole country apart from her mother. When Naomi Marie's mom and Naomi Edith's dad get serious about dating, each girl tries to cling to the life she knows and loves. Then their parents push them into attending a class together, where they might just have to find a way to work with each other--and maybe even join forces to find new ways to define family.
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Waiting for Normal
Leslie Connor
Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.
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Welcome to the Family
Mary Hoffman
Introduces different types of households and discusses families with children, adoption, foster parents, same-sex parents, and fertility treatments.
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What Happened to Goodbye
Sarah Dessen
Following her parents' bitter divorce as she and her father move from town to town, seventeen-year-old Mclean reinvents herself at each school she attends until she is no longer sure she knows who she is or where she belongs.
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What Hearts
Bruce Brooks
After his mother divorces his father and remarries, Asa's sharp intellect and capacity for forgiveness help him deal with the instabilities of his new world.
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What is Real
Karen Rivers
Dex Pratt's life has been turned upside down: his parents have divorced, his mother has remarried, and his father attempts suicide and fails. Dex returns to their small town to care for him. However, he isn't prepared for his father's grow-op or his rotting rented house.
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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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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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White Rabbit
Caleb Roehrig
Rufus Holt is having the worst night of his life. It begins with the reappearance of his ex-boyfriend, Sebastian―the guy who stomped his heart out like a spent cigarette. Just as Rufus is getting ready to move on, Sebastian turns up out of the blue, saying they need to "talk." Things couldn’t get worse, right? Then Rufus gets a call from his sister April, begging for help. He and Sebastian find her, drenched in blood and holding a knife beside the dead body of her boyfriend, Fox Whitney. April swears she didn’t kill Fox. Rufus knows her too well to believe she’s telling him the whole truth, but April has something he needs. Her price is his help. Now, with no one to trust but the boy he wants to hate yet can’t stop loving, Rufus has one night to clear his sister’s name . . . or die trying.
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Words on Bathroom Walls
Julia Walton
Adam has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He sees and hears people who aren't there: Rebecca, a beautiful girl who understands him; the Mob Boss, who harasses him; and Jason, the naked guy whos unfailingly polite. It should be easy to separate the real from the not real, but Adam can't. Still, theres hope. As Adam starts fresh at a new school, he begins a drug trial that helps him ignore his visions. Suddenly everything seems possible, even love. When he meets Maya, a fiercely intelligent girl, he desperately wants to be the great guy that she thinks he is. But then the miracle drug begins to fail, and Adam will do anything to keep Maya from discovering his secret.
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Zack's Story: Growing Up with Same-Sex Parents
Keith Elliot Greenberg
An eleven-year-old boy describes life as part of a family made up of himself, his mother, and her lesbian partner.