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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Kicked Out
Sassafras Lowrey
This volume is collection of essays written by young people who were kicked out of their homes as minors for identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), as well as a few policy essays from service providers. Diverse contributors ranging in age, experience, and current living situation share stories of perseverance and abuse with poignant accounts of survival. The editors point out that very few urban areas have recognized the need to serve dispossessed LGBT youth by establishing shelters or safe houses; money is tight and public support is often hard to muster. They feel that homelessness of these kids is but a symptom of a larger and more pervasive cultural problem: we are a society that does not value all people, and somehow there seems to be a tacit belief that parents of LGBT youth are entitled to abdicate their responsibility to love and protect the children they have created. They feel that such a mindset is due to a homophobic and transphobic culture. This anthology intends to present the points-of-view of the voiceless and also to challenge the stereotypical face of homelessness.
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Kids are Important: A Book for Young Children in Foster Care
Julie Nelson
Explains to children some of the reasons why a child ends up in foster care.
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Kids Need to be Safe: A Book for Children in Foster Care
Julie Nelson
Explains that all children are important and need safe places to live and play, and describes what foster parents do and how foster children may feel when placed in a foster home.
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Kids of Appetite
David Arnold
Teens Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco sit in separate police interrogation rooms telling about the misfits who brought them together and their journey sparked by a message in an urn.
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Kimchi & Calamari
Rose Kent
Teenaged Joseph Calderaro, who was adopted from Korea by Italian parents, begins to make important self-discoveries about race and family after his social studies teacher assigns an essay on cultural heritage and tracing the past.
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Kinda Like Brothers
Coe Booth
When his mother takes in a twelve-year-old foster boy, Jarrett is forced to share his room and his friends with the new boy.
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King and King
Linda de Haan
When the queen insists that the prince get married and take over as king, the search for a suitable mate does not turn out as expected.
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King and King and Family
Linda de Haan
King Lee and King Bertie take a honeymoon trip to the jungle and bring home a surprise.
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King for a Day
Rukhsana Khan
Even though he is confined to a wheelchair, a Pakistani boy tries to capture the most kites during Basant, the annual spring kite festival, and become "king" for the day. Includes an afterword about the Basant festival.
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King of the Screwups
K.L. Going
After getting in trouble yet again, popular high school senior Liam, who never seems to live up to his wealthy father's expectations, is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay "glam-rocker" uncle.
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Kiss
Jacqueline Wilson
Sylvie and Carl have been friends since they were tiny children. They've always played together, eaten meals with each other's families, called each other boyfriend and girlfriend...and deep down, Sylvie has always believed that they'll end up married to each other. They even have a magical fantasy world that belongs to them alone. But as they become teenagers, things begin to change.
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Kiss Number 8
Colleen AF Venable
Mads is pretty happy with her life. She goes to church with her family, and minor league baseball games with her dad. She goofs off with her best friend Cat, and has thus far managed to avoid getting kissed by Adam, the boy next door. It's everything she hoped high school would be... until all of a sudden, it's not. Her dad is hiding something big--so big it could tear her family apart. And that's just the beginning of her problems: Mads is starting to figure out that she doesn't want to kiss Adam... because the only person she wants to kiss is Cat. Just like that, Mad's tidy little life has gotten epically messy--and epically heartbreaking. And when your heart is broken, it takes more than an awkward, uncomfortable, tooth-clashing, friendship-ending kiss to put things right again. It takes a whole bunch of them.
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Knife Edge (Noughts & Crosses, #2)
Malorie Blackman
Following Callum's death, the people who loved him relate how their lives have been changed, especially in reference to his girlfriend, Sephy, and their mixed-race child.
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KNOCK KNOCK My Dad's Dream for Me
Daniel Beaty
A boy wakes up one morning to find his father gone. At first, he feels lost. But his father has left him a letter filled with advice to guide him through the times he cannot be there.
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Koalas on Parade
Brenna Harding and Vicki Harding
A little girl's mothers help her make a koala costume for her school's costume parade. When she finds out that her friend Hannah is also a koala, the two girls dance together in the parade and take home first prize!
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Kofi's Mom
Richard W. Dyches
Kofi's Mom is a story about Kofi whose mother is sent to prison. It explores his feelings of loss and confusion. Through friends at school, Kofi begins to talk about his mom and to look forward to her return.
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Kyle's Island
Sally Derby
For as far back as Kyle can remember, he spent summers at Gram's cottage on the lake—fishing all day, and hanging out with the whole family. But this year is different. His father has moved out, his grandmother has died, and his mother is selling the cottage because they can't afford the upkeep. Sally Derby takes readers to a small lake in 1970s Michigan, where thirteen-year-old Kyle comes to understand that loss isn't forever, and that people are more complicated than they seem.
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Ladder to the Moon
Maya Soetoro-Ng
Suhaila's wish to know her deceased grandmother is granted when a golden ladder appears at her window and Grandma Annie invites her on a journey to the moon, where they welcome people who are facing tragedy. Includes facts about the painting and the woman who inspired the story.
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Lady Daisy
Dick King-Smith
Ned's disappointment turns into shock when the doll his grandmother has given him speaks to him, and together the two of them share stories of their very different worlds.
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Lailah's Lunchbox
Reem Faruqi
Now that she is ten, Lailah is delighted that she can fast during the month of Ramadan like her family and her friends in Abu Dhabi, but finding a way to explain to her teacher and classmates in Atlanta is a challenge until she gets some good advice from the librarian, Mrs. Carman.
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Large Fears
Myles E. Johnson
Jeremiah Nebula is a black boy who loves pink things and wants to travel to Mars. But in order to reach Mars he has to confront the large fears that stand between him and his goal.
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Last Seen Leaving
Caleb Roehrig
Flynn's girlfriend is missing, and people are suspecting him of knowing something, so he struggles to uncover her secrets as he must also face the truth about himself.
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Last Stop on Market Street
Matt de la Peña
CJ begins his weekly bus journey around the city with disappointment and dissatisfaction, wondering why he and his family can't drive a car like his friends. Through energy and encouragement, CJ's nana helps him see the beauty and fun in their routine.
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Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up with me
Mariko Tamaki
Laura Dean, the most popular girl in high school, was Frederica Riley's dream girl, but Freddy is learning she is not the best girlfriend, so she seeks help from a mysterious medium and advice columnists to help her through being a teenager in love.
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Laurie
Elfi Nijssen
Laurie is a little girl who would love to be like other children, but her hearing problems can make that difficult, until she goes to the ear doctor and gets new hearing aids that allow her to hear things around her clearly.