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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Grandparents Raising Kids
Rae Simons
In 2005, 6 million children were being raised by their grandparents. Sometimes, their grandchildren's parents had died, sometimes they were in prison, and sometimes they just couldn't cope with raising children. When grandparents take in their grandchildren to raise, they have some difficulties most families don't have. They're older, for one thing, and they also have to deal with their own children and that relationship. But they have the wisdom and experience they've gained from raising one set of children already, and this can help. The families in this book have had both good and bad experiences, but they have learned a great deal through them.
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Grandparents Song
Sheila Hamanaka
A rhyming celebration of ancestry and of the diversity that flourishes in this country.
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Grasshopper Jungle
Andrew Smith
Austin Szerba narrates the end of humanity as he and his best friend Robby accidentally unleash an army of giant, unstoppable bugs and uncover the secrets of a decades-old experiment gone terribly wrong.
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Grasslands
Debra Seely
In the 1880s, thirteen-year-old Thomas moves west from the aristocratic Virginia home of his grandparents to a poor Kansas farm to live with a father he barely remembers and his new stepfamily.
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Great Joy
Kate DiCamillo
Just before Christmas, when Frances sees a sad-eyed organ grinder and his monkey performing near her apartment, she cannot stop thinking about them, wondering where they go at night, and wishing she could do something to help.
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GreenBean: True Blue Family
Elizabeth Blake
Greenbean is worried that she does not belong in her family because she is different, but discovers that belonging is about something different.
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Greenglass House
Kate Milford
It's wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler's inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers' adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo's home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook's daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House -- and themselves.
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Greetings, Leroy
Itah Sadu
The first day at a new school is nerve-wracking enough, never mind when it's in a new country! In this lively picture book from award-winning storyteller Itah Sadu, Roy realizes he may come to love his new home in Canada as much as he loves his old home in Jamaica.
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Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood
Melissa Hart
Torn between the high socioeconomic status of her father and the bohemian lifestyle of her mother, Melissa Hart tells a compelling story of contradiction in this coming-of-age memoir. Set in 1970s Southern California, Gringa is the story of a young girl conflicted by two extremes. On the one hand theres life with her mother, who leaves her father to begin a lesbian relationship, taking Hart and her two siblings along. Hart tells of her moms new life in a Hispanic neighborhood of Oxnard, California, and how these new surroundings begin to positively shape Hart herself. At the opposite extreme is her fathers white-bread well-to-do security, which is predictable and stable and boring. Hart is made all the more fraught with frustration when a judge rules that being raised by two women is 'unnatural' and grants her father primary custody.
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Guy Time
Sarah Weeks
A humorous account of thirteen-year-old Guy's dealing with the separation, and possible divorce, of his eccentric parents and with his own new-found interest in girls.
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Hairs=Pelitos
Sandra Cisneros
A girl describes how each person in the family has hair that looks and acts different: Papa's like a broom, Kiki's like fur, and Mama's with the sweet smell of bread before it's baked. Desde el corte de pelo tipo cepillo de papá, hasta la espesa cabellera de Kiki o el pelo resbaloso de Nenny, ésta es una familia con todo tipo de pelo. Y luego está mamá, cuyo pelo tiene un olor dulce como el pan. El pelo de mamá es único e incomparable.
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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Lisa Dunn-Dern
An interracial family enjoys a Saturday ritual. After a pancake breakfast, the mother goes to a hair salon, while the little girl and father style each other's hair. Because her father is bald, the little girl must use her imagination, play-dough, and ribbons to create his hair-do. Each week, the family enjoys each other's new hairstyles.
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Half a Heart
Rosellen Brown
When her biracial daughter appears suddenly after eighteen years searching for the mother who left her, former civil rights activist Miriam Vener begins a painful confrontation with her past.
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Half a Man
Michael Morpurgo
From a young age, Michael was both fascinated by and afraid of his grandfather. Grandpa’s ship was torpedoed during the Second World War, leaving him with terrible burns. Every time he came to stay, Michael was warned by his mother that he must not stare, he must not make too much noise, he must not ask Grandpa any questions about his past. As he grows older, Michael stays with his grandfather during the summer holidays and learns the story behind Grandpa’s injuries, finally getting to know the real man behind the solemn figure from his childhood. Michael can see beyond the burns, and this gives him the power to begin healing scars that have divided his family for so long.
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Half and Half
Lensey Namioka
At Seattle's annual Folk Fest, twelve-year-old Fiona and her older brother are torn between trying to please their Chinese grandmother and making their Scottish grandparents happy.
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Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural
Claudine C. O'Hearn
Eighteen biracial and bicultural writers address the difficulties and benefits of growing up different in the United States. As we approach the twenty-first century, biracialism and biculturalism are becoming increasingly common. Skin color and place of birth are no longer reliable signifiers of one's identity or origin. Simple questions like 'What are you?' and 'Where are you from?' aren't answered -- they are discussed. These eighteen essays, joined by a shared sense of duality, address the difficulties of not fitting into and the benefits of being part of two worlds. Through the lens of personal experience, they offer a broader spectrum of meaning for race and culture. And in the process, they map a new ethnic terrain that transcends racial and cultural division.
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Half a World Away
Cynthia Kadohata
Twelve-year-old Jaden, an emotionally damaged adopted boy fascinated by electricity, feels a connection to a small, weak toddler with special needs in Kazakhstan, where Jaden's family is trying to adopt a "normal" baby.
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Halle Berry: Academy Award-Winning Actress
Kerrily Sapet
A look at the life and career of the famous actress.
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Hancock Park
Isabel Kaplan
While attending an exclusive prep school in Los Angeles, a smart but anxiety-ridden high school junior tries to deal with boys, popularity, and her parents' divorce.
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Happy Accidents
Jane Lynch
Best-known as Glee's sharp-tongued Sue Sylvester, Jane Lynch's on-screen persona is someone that many love to hate. But when she's not prowling the corridors in Sue's shiny tracksuit, who is the real Jane Lynch and how did this Golden Globe and Emmy winner learn to channel such delicious nastiness?
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Happy Adoption Day!
John McCutcheon
Parents celebrate the day on which they adopted their child and continue to reassure the new addition to their family that they are wanted, loved, and very special.
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Happy Birthday, Bertie!
Marcus Pfister
It's Bertie's birthday and he's going to have a birthday party. There's a birthday cake to be made, and decorations to be hung, and games to be played, and best of all, presents to be opened. But where is Daddy's present? Daddy has hidden it so well, he cannot find it himself.
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Happy Birthday to Me (Amy Hodgepodge, #2)
Kim Wayans and Kevin Knotts
Amy is very excited about the special sleepover she has planned for her tenth birthday until her friends get the chance to go to a concert the same night, and meanwhile, she worries that her family will be moving again.
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Happyface
Stephen Emond
After going through traumatic times, a troubled, socially awkward teenager moves to a new school where he tries to reinvent himself.
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Happy Families
Tanita S. Davis
In alternating chapters, sixteen-year-old twins Ysabel and Justin share their conflicted feelings as they struggle to come to terms with their father's decision to dress as a woman.