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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Laurie Tells
Linda Lowery
When her mother doesn't believe her, eleven-year-old Laurie tells a supportive aunt that she is being sexually abused by her father
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Laverne Cox
Erin Staley
Highlights the struggles and achievements of Laverne Cox, an American actress, who became the first openly transgender person to win numerous awards and have a wax work in Madame Tussauds.
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Leading Ladies
Marlee Matlin and Doug Cooney
A deaf fourth-grader finds her true calling when she is cast as Dorothy in a school production of "The Wizard of Oz."
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Leah On The Offbeat
Becky Albertalli
Leah Burke - girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier's best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - takes centre stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst. When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat - but real life isn't always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she's the only child of a young, single mum, and her life is decidedly less privileged. And even though her mom knows she's bisexual, she hasn't mustered the courage to tell her friends - not even her openly gay BFF, Simon. So Leah really doesn't know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It's hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting. Especially when she realises she might love one of them more than she ever intended.
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Learning Seventeen
Brooke Carter
New Hope Academy, or, as seventeen-year-old Jane Learning likes to call it, No Hope, is a Baptist reform school where Jane is currently being held captive. Of course, smart, sarcastic Jane has no interest in reforming, failing to see any benefit to pretending to play well with others. But then Hannah shows up, a gorgeous bad girl with fiery hair and an even stormier disposition. She shows Jane how to live a full and fulfilling life even when the world tells you you're wrong, and how to believe in a future outside the "prison" walls. Jane soon learns, though, that Hannah is quietly battling some demons of her own.
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Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part One
Michael Dante DiMartino
Relishing their newfound feelings for each other, Korra and Asami leave the Spirit World, but find nothing in Republic City but political hijinks and human vs. spirit conflict. A pompous developer plans to turn the new spirit portal into an amusement park, potentially severing an already tumultuous connection with the spirits. What's more, the triads have realigned and are in a brutal all-out brawl at the city's borders--where hundreds of evacuees have relocated! In order to get through it all, Korra and Asami vow to look out for each other--but first, they've got to get better at being a team and a couple!
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Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part Three
Michael Dante DiMartino
When Asami is kidnapped, Korra sets out to the Spirit Wilds to find her. Now teeming with dark spirits influenced by the half spirit-half human Tokuga, the landscape is more dangerous than ever before. The two women must trust in each other and work together if they are to make it out alive.
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Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part Two
Dante DiMartino
Recovering from the fight and furious for revenge, Triple Threats member Tokuga solidifies his ties with the duplicitous Wonyong. Meanwhile, when Republic City's housing crisis reaches its peak, Zhu Li sets her sights on the biggest public figure in the city--President Raiko--in a bid for the presidency! With her friend's success, the future of the spirit portal, and the wellbeing of Republic City's citizens at stake, can Korra remain neutral and fulfill her duties as the Avatar?
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Leonardo's Hand
Warwick Downing
Finally in a foster home with a caring family, Nard, a thirteen-year-old orphan with only one hand, invents a human-powered flying machine with the assistance of the 500-year-old hand of Leonardo da Vinci.
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Less Than Half, More Than Whole
Kathleen Lacapa and Michael Lapaca
A child who is only part Native American is troubled by his mixed racial heritage.
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Let's Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents
Tina Fakhrid-Deen
Offers children, teens, and adults with one or more gay, bisexual, or transgender parents advice on how they can deal with the challenges they might face, build healthy relationships with their parents, address discrimination, build a strong sense of self-esteem, and reduce the isolation and shame they might feel.
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Let's Talk About It: Divorce
Fred Rogers
Discusses healthy ways to deal with what children might be feeling about divorce.
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Let's Talk About Living with a Grandparent
Susan Kent
Discusses various reasons for living with a grandparent, the benefits of such an arrangement, and how to help out at home.
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Let's Talk About Living with a Single Parent
Elizabeth Weitzman
Examines potential problems and issues that might arise in several different kinds of single-parent homes.
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Let's Talk About Love
Claire Kann
In this young adult novel, Alice, afraid of explaining her asexuality, has given up on finding love until love finds her.
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Let's Talk About Race
Julius Lester
The author introduces the concept of race as only one component in an individual's or nation's "story."
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Let's Talk About Racism
Bruce Sanders
Uses a question and answer format to explain racism and why some people are treated unfairly because of their skin color or religion and discusses ways of dealing with this issue.
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Letters from the Heart
Annie Bryant
A family history project for school is giving the Beacon Street Girls a lot to think about -- especially Avery. She's got three families: her mother and brothers at home, her father in Colorado, and the birth mother she never really knew. But family is an uncomfortable subject for Maeve. Her parents have just separated, and she doesn't want to talk about it to anyone, not even her best friends in the world, the BSG. Can a bundle of old letters make Maeve see her family in a new light and give her something to share with the Beacon Street Girls?
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Levi's Family (All Kinds of Families)
Elliot Riley
Easy reader introduces a foster child and his foster parents, highlighting their family dynamics and adoption.
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LGBTQ+ Athletes Claim the Field: Striving for Equality
Kirstin Cronn-Mills
In 2015, the world watched as soccer star Abby Wambach kissed her wife after the US women's World Cup victory. Milwaukee Brewers' minor league first baseman David Denson came out as gay. And Caitlyn (born Bruce) Jenner, an Olympic decathlete, came out as transgender. It hasn't always been this way. Many great athletes have stayed in the closet their whole lives, or at least until retirement. Social attitudes, institutional policies, and laws are slow to change, but they are catching up. Together, athletes, families, educators, allies, and fans are pushing for competitive equity so that every athlete, regardless of identity, can have the opportunity to play at their very best.
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LGBTQ Families: The Ultimate Teen Guide (It Happened to Me)
Eva Apelqvist
Children with LGBTQ parents are affected by all issues LGBTQ. This book is designed for inquisitive teens digging for answers about the many challenges they face. Apelqvist offers encouragement, insights, and resources to help them cope with and embrace the uniqueness of their family life.
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Liars, Inc.
Paula Stokes
Seventeen-year-old Max, his girlfriend Parvati, and best friend Pres form Liars, Inc., expecting that forging notes and lying for their peers will lead to easy cash, but when Pres asks Max to cover for him, it may be a fatal mistake.
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Liberty
Kirby Larson
In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.
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Lies My Girlfriend Told Me
Julie Ann Peters
When her girlfriend dies suddenly at age seventeen, Colorado teenager Alix struggles with grief as painful secrets are revealed.
