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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Saving Montgomery Sole
Mariko Tamaki
Montgomery Sole is a square peg in a small town, forced to go to a school full of jocks and girls who don't even know what irony is. It would all be impossible if it weren't for her best friends, Thomas and Naoki. The three are also the only members of Jefferson High's Mystery Club, dedicated to exploring the weird and unexplained, from ESP and astrology to super powers and mysterious objects. Then there's the Eye of Know, the possibly powerful crystal amulet Monty bought online. Will it help her predict the future or fight back against the ignorant jerks who make fun of Thomas for being gay or Monty for having lesbian moms? Maybe the Eye is here just in time, because the newest resident of their small town is scarier than mothmen, poltergeists, or, you know, gym. Thoughtful, funny, and painfully honest, Montgomery Sole is someone you'll want to laugh and cry with over a big cup of frozen yogurt with extra toppings.
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Sawkill Girls
Claire Legrand
After girls mysteriously disappear on the island of Sawkill Rock, three unlikely friends come together to destroy the Collector, a monster from another world who grows stronger with each kill.
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Say the Word
Jeannine Garsee
Perfectionist Shawna dates the right boys, gets good grades, and follows her father's every rule. So when her estranged lesbian mother dies, Shawna needs to figure out how to have the perfect reaction. But anger from being abandoned ten years ago, combined with the introduction of her mother's other family, threatens to leave Shawna spinning out of control. A relatable and honest teen voice-and a shocking secret-make this novel a true page-turner.
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Scars
Cheryl Rainfield
Fifteen-year-old Kendra, a budding artist, has not felt safe since she began to recall devastating memories of childhood sexual abuse, especially since she cannot remember her abuser's identity, and she copes with the pressure by cutting herself.
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Scooter
Vera B. Williams
A child's silver blue scooter helps her to adjust to her new home. Elana Rose tells of her event-filled first summer after moving with her mother to a new apartment, as new neighbors and friends become an important part of Elana Rose's life. A treasure of a book--touching, funny, and totally original--with a surprise climax.
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Screaming Divas
Suzanne Kamata
A teenage girl band in 1980s South Carolina becomes a local sensation, but just as its members are about to achieve their rock girl dreams, tragedy strikes.
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Sea Prayer
Khaled Hosseini
Sea Prayer is composed in the form of a letter, from a father to his son, on the eve of their journey. Watching over his sleeping son, the father reflects on the dangerous sea-crossing that lies before them. It is also a vivid portrait of their life in Homs, Syria, before the war, and of that city's swift transformation from a home into a deadly war zone.
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Search for Safety
John Langan
Ben McKee, a new student at Bluford High School, tries to hide the bruises covering his body from his teachers and his new friends.
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Secret City
Julia Watts
Ruby Pickett didn't have any say about the family move to Tennessee. Her daddy's new job will help the war effort, though no one has told her exactly how. Brand new, government-built Oak Ridge quickly proves a curious and intriguing place for the sixteen-year-old's rampant curiosity. A voracious reader, Ruby wonders at mysteries in books and sees possible mysteries in the secrecy that surrounds Oak Ridge. She finds a kindred spirit in Iris, a young wife and mother who has moved to Oak Ridge with her scientist husband, and who chafes at the intellectual emptiness of her new home and life. Faraway events don't seem likely to answer any of Ruby's questions, but as the war grows more destructive Ruby begins to realize that her curiosity--like her deepening feelings for Iris--may be more dangerous than she could possibly imagine.
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Seeing Lessons: The Story of Abigail Carter and America's First School for the Blind
Spring Hermann
In 1832, when Abigail Carter was only ten years old, two doctors from Boston invited her to be one of the first students in an experimental institution: a school for blind people. Abby and her younger sister Sophia, also blind, packed their bags and headed to the city. For the first time in their lives, the two girls were able to read a book for themselves and to write a letter to their father.
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See No Color
Shannon Gibney
Alex has always identified herself as a baseball player, the daughter of a winning coach, but when she realizes that is not enough she begins to come to terms with her adoption and her race.
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See You at Harry's
Jo Knowles
Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible in her family, where grumpy eighteen-year-old Sarah is working at the family restaurant, fourteen-year-old Holden is struggling with school bullies and his emerging homosexuality, and adorable, three-year-old Charlie is always the center of attention, and when tragedy strikes, the fragile bond holding the family together is stretched almost to the breaking point.
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See You Tomorrow, Charles
Miriam Cohen
When Charles, a young blind boy, joins their first-grade class, Anna Maria and the other children feel unsure of themselves and of him until they learn to accept Charles.
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Sélavi: A Haitian Story of Hope
Youme Landowne
A homeless boy on the streets of Haiti joins other street children, and together they build a home and a radio station where they can care for themselves and for other homeless children.
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Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation
Duncan Tonatiuh
Years before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez, an eight-year-old girl of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, played an instrumental role in Mendez v. Westminster, the landmark desegregation case of 1946 in California.
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Separations
Robert Lehrman
When Kim's parents get a divorce, she must leave her father, her tennis coach, and her suburban home to move into New York City.
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Seraphina
Rachel Hartman
Seraphina is a half-dragon, descended from a dragon mother who took human form and a father who has no particular fondness for Seraphina’s kind. Not that anyone else does either. Hers is a world where dragons and humans live and work side by side—but below the surface, tensions and hostilities are on the rise. Seraphina guards her true self with all of her being, but when a member of the royal family is brutally murdered, she’s suddenly thrust into the spotlight, drawn into the investigation alongside the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian. As the two uncover a sinister plot to destroy the wavering peace of the kingdom, Seraphina’s struggle to protect her secret becomes increasingly difficult . . . and its discovery could mean her very life.
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Seven Ways We Lie
Riley Redgate
A chance encounter tangles the lives of seven high school students, each resisting the allure of one of the seven deadly sins, and each telling their story from their seven distinct points of view.
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Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Rachel Stuckey
Presents information about sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as related social issues and ways of dealing with problems that a person may experience due to one's gender and sexual orientation.
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Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters
Evelyn Nakano Glenn
Shades of Difference examines the significance of skin color in different societies around the world and its effects on relations between and within racial groups.
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Shades of People
Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly
An author and photographer join forces in this pictorial essay on skin color, demonstrating the different appearances children can have, but reminding the reader that they are still children that enjoy the same things. Like a wrapped gift, the authors' message is that skin is just a covering and that you cannot tell what someone is like from the color of their skin.
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Shadowplay (Micah Grey, #2)
Laura Lam
Old magics are waking. But will the world survive their return?Micah Grey almost died when he fled the circus with Drystan - now he and the ex-clown seek to outrun disaster. Drystan persuades his old friend Jasper Maske, a once-renowned magician, to take them in. But when he agrees to teach them his trade, Maske is challenged to the ultimate high-stakes duel by his embittered arch-nemesis. Micah must perfect his skills of illusion, while navigating a tender new love. An investigator is also hunting the person he once seemed to be - a noble family's runaway daughter. As the duel draws near, Micah increasingly suffers from visions showing him real magic and future terrors. Events that broke the ancient world are being replayed. But can Micah's latent powers influence this deadly pattern?
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Shanghai Messenger
Andrea Cheng
A free-verse novel about eleven-year-old Xiao Mei's visit with her extended family in China, where the Chinese-American girl finds many differences but also the similarities that bind a family together.
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Shark Girl
Kelly Bingham
After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future.
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Shattered
Kathi Baron
Teen violin prodigy Cassie has been tiptoeing around her father, whose moods have become increasingly explosive. After he destroys her beloved and valuable violin, Cassie, shocked, runs away, eventually seeking refuge in a homeless shelter. She later learns that her father, a former violinist, was physically beaten as a child by her grandfather, a painful secret he's kept hidden from his family, and the cause of his violent outbursts. With all of their lives shattered in some way, Cassie's family must struggle to repair their broken relationships. As Cassie moves forward, she ultimately finds a way to help others, having developed compassion through her own painful experiences. Written in lyrical prose, Shattered tells the moving story of how one girl finds inner strength through music.