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 Diverse Families by Subject:
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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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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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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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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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Born Both: An Intersex Life
Hida Viloria
From Hida Viloria, writer and intersex activist, a candid, provocative, and eye-opening memoir of life, love, and gender identity as an intact intersex person, as well as a call to action for justice for intersex people. Hida Viloria was raised as a girl but discovered early on that he/r body was different. Unlike most people who are born intersex in the first world--meaning they have genitals, reproductive organs, hormones, and/or chromosomal patterns that do not fit standard definitions of male or female--Hida had the freedom to explore the person s/he was born to be because he/r parents did not agree to have he/r sex characteristics surgically altered at birth. It wasn't until s/he was 26 and encountered the term "intersex" in a San Francisco newspaper that s/he finally had a name for he/r difference. That's when s/he began to explore what it means to live in the space between genders--to be both and neither. As s/he began to reach out to others like he/r, however, Hida discovered that most intersex people had been scarred, both physically and psychologically, by infant surgeries and hormone treatments meant to "correct" their bodies. Eager to help end this practice, Hida came out as intersex at a national and then international level. By answering the question "Are you a boy or a girl?" with "I'm both," Hida's helped blaze a trail for people--particularly intersex and genderqueer/non-binary people--to celebrate the middle space where male and female are not separate and opposite but entwined. Born Both is an intimate and powerful account of Hida's search for authentic identity and love in a world that insists on categorizing people into either/or.
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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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Boy Erased
Garrard Conley
A poignant account by a survivor of a church-supported sexual orientation conversion therapy facility that claimed to 'cure' homosexuality describes its intense Bible study program and the daily threats of his abandonment by family, friends and God, an experience that transformed the author's relationships and self-understandings.
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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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Branded by the Pink Triangle
Ken Setterington
Before the rise of the Nazi party, Germany, especially Berlin, was one of the most tolerant places for homosexuals in the world. But that all changed when the Nazis came to power. The pink triangle sewn onto prison uniforms became the symbol of the persecution of homosexuals, a persecution that would continue for many years after the war. A mix of historical research, first-person accounts and individual stories bring this time to life for readers.
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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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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.
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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 April
Marguerite De Angeli
Bright April is set in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. The story addresses the problem of racial prejudice and how children are able to gain understanding and tolerance through their own natural devices.
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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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Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
Mary Williams and R. Gregory Christie
Eight-year-old Garang is tending cattle far from his family's home in southern Sudan when war comes to his village. Frightened but unharmed, he returns to find everything has been destroyed. Soon Garang meets other boys whose villages have been attacked. Before long they become a moving band of thousands, walking hundreds of miles seeking safety — first in Ethiopia and then in Kenya. The boys face numerous hardships and dangers along the way, but their faith and mutual support help keep the hope of finding a new home alive in their hearts. Based on heartbreaking yet inspirational true events in the lives of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Brothers in Hope is a story of remarkable and enduring courage, and an amazing testament to the unyielding power of the human spirit.