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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Angry Management
Chris Crutcher
Every kid in this group wants to fly. Every kid in this group has too much ballast. Mr. Nak's Angry Management group is a place for misfits. A place for stories. And, man, does this crew have stories. There's Angus Bethune and Sarah Byrnes, who can hide from everyone but each other. Together, they will embark on a road trip full of haunting endings and glimmering beginnings. And Montana West, who doesn't step down from a challenge. Not even when the challenge comes from her adoptive dad, who's leading the school board to censor the article she wrote for the school paper. And straightlaced Matt Miller, who had never been friends with outspoken genius Marcus James. Until one tragic week—a week they'd do anything to change—brings them closer than Matt could have ever imagined.
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An Inmate's Daughter
Jan Walker
Jenna's mother forbids her to tell her friends that her dad is in prison. Prison reflects on wives and children. Keeping the fact of prison secret becomes more difficult when the newspaper runs a story about Jenna's "Good Samaritan" rescue at the McNeil Island Corrections Center. She just wants to fit in. As Jenna writes in her journal, children of prisoners are doing time too.
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An Mei's Strange and Wondrous Journey
Stephan Molnar-Fenton
A picture book illustrated by the award-winning artist of Lullaby Raft follows the life of a six-year-old orphaned girl born in China, who is adopted and brought to America, where she learns to adjust to her new, unfamiliar home.
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Annabel
Kathleen Winter
Born a boy and a girl but raised as a boy, Wayne or "Annabel" struggles with his identity growing up in a small Canadian town and seeks freedom by moving to the city.
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Anna Day and the O-Ring
Elaine Wickens
Evan and his two mothers try to assemble a tent and find that Anna Day, the dog, has hidden the o-ring.
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Anna Hibiscus
Atinuke .
Anna Hibiscus, who lives in Africa with her whole family, loves to splash in the sea and have parties for her aunties, but Anna would love to see snow.
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Annie's Plaid Shirt
Stacy B. Davids
Annie loves her plaid shirt and wears it everywhere. But one day her mom tells Annie that she must wear a dress to her uncle's wedding. Annie protests, but her mom insists and buys her a fancy new dress anyway. Annie is miserable. She feels weird in dresses. Why can't her mom understand? Then Annie has an idea. But will her mom agree? Annie's Plaid Shirt will inspire readers to be themselves and will touch the hearts of those who love them.
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Another Life Altogether
Elaine Beale
In 1970s Northern England, thirteen-year-old Jesse Bennett struggles to come to terms with her attraction to girls while dealing with her mother's mental illness.
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Another Way to Dance
Martha Southgate
While spending the summer at the School of American Ballet in New York City, fourteen-year-old Vicki Harris must come to terms with the reality of her parents' divorce, her crush on Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the impact of being an African American on her future as a dancer.
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Antonio's Card / La tarjeta de Antonio
Rigoberto Gonzalez and Cecilia Concepcion Alvarez
With Mother's Day coming, Antonio finds he has to decide about what is important to him when his classmates make fun of the unusual appearance of his mother's partner, Leslie.
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Anything But Typical
Nora Raleigh Baskin
Jason Blake is an autistic twelve-year-old living in a neurotypical world. Most days it's just a matter of time before something goes wrong. But Jason finds a glimmer of understanding when he comes across PhoenixBird, who posts stories to the same online site as he does. Jason can be himself when he writes and he thinks that PhoneixBird-her name is Rebecca-could be his first real friend. But as desperate as Jason is to met her, he's terrified that if they do meet, Rebecca wil only see his autism and not who Jason really is.
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Anything Could Happen
Will Walton
Tretch lives in a small town where everybody's in everybody else's business. He's in love with his straight best friend, Matt, and Matt is completely oblivious to the way Tretch feels. Meanwhile, Tretch's family has no idea who he really is, and the girl at the local bookstore has no clue how off-base her crush on him is.
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A Path of Stars
Anne Sibley O'Brien
A refugee from Cambodia, Dara's beloved grandmother is grief-stricken when she learns her brother has died, and it is up to Dara to try and heal her.
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A Picture Book of Helen Keller
David A. Adler
Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. When she was just a year and a half old, she was left blind and deaf from an illness. In a very simple text, the author covers the important facts of Helen Keller's life. Besides her extraordinary work with teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan, she published several books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Her bravery, brilliance, and spirit brought hope to millions of disabled people.
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A Picture Book of Louis Braille
David A. Adler
Presents the life of the nineteenth-century Frenchman, accidentally blinded as a child, who originated the raised dot system of reading and writing used throughout the world by the blind.
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A Piece of Home
Jeri Watts
When Hee Jun’s family moves from Korea to West Virginia, he struggles to adjust to his new home. His eyes are not big and round like his classmates’, and he can’t understand anything the teacher says, even when she speaks s-l-o-w-l-y and loudly at him. As he lies in bed at night, the sky seems smaller and darker. But little by little Hee Jun begins to learn English words and make friends on the playground. And one day he is invited to a classmate’s house, where he sees a flower he knows from his garden in Korea — mugunghwa, or rose of Sharon, as his friend tells him — and Hee Jun is happy to bring a shoot to his grandmother to plant a “piece of home” in their new garden. Lyrical prose and lovely illustrations combine in a gentle, realistic story about finding connections in an unfamiliar world.
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A Pillow for My Mom
Charissa Sgouros
Through the changing seasons a young girl struggles with her concern and love for her mother who is sick in hospital.
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A Place in My Heart
Mary Grossnickle
Charlie, a chipmunk adopted by a family of squirrels, begins to wonder about his birthparents but is afraid that asking questions will upset his family.
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A Place in the World
Malcolm Frierson
Set in Baltimore, Ghana, and rural Georgia, a novel of love, marriage, betrayal, divorce, discovery, African heritage, international adoption, racism, and tragedy unfolds. Kwame and Evelyn adopt Kofi whom they adore. After divorce and remarriage, their nationalistic and interracial families clash. Caught between households, Kofi strives to find himself and battles dangerous anxiety attacks.
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A Place to Call Home
Jackie French Koller
Biracial Anna, 15, is a strong character in search of love & roots following sexual abuse & rejection from her own family. Caring for her two younger siblings after their unreliable mother abandons them, fifteen-year-old Anna discovers the difficulties of trying to be a parent.
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A Plan for Pops
Heather Smith
Lou spends every Saturday with Grandad and Pops. They walk to the library hand in hand, like a chain of paper dolls. Grandad reads books about science and design, Pops listens to rock and roll, and Lou bounces from lap to lap. But everything changes one Saturday. Pops has a fall. That night there is terrible news: Pops will be confined to a wheelchair, not just for now, but for always. Unable to cope with his new circumstances, he becomes withdrawn and shuts himself in his room. Hearing Grandad trying to cheer up Pops inspires Lou to make a plan. Using skills learned from Grandad, and with a little help from their neighbors, Lou comes up with a plan for Pops.
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April Witch
Majgull Azelsson and Linda Schenck
Desirée lies in a hospital bed thinking, dreaming. Born severely disabled, she cannot walk or talk, but she has other capabilities. Desirée is an April witch, clairvoyant and omniscient, traveling through time and space into the world denied her. The woman who gave Desirée up at birth subsequently took in three foster daughters, who know nothing of the existence of their fourth “sister.” Sensing that her own time is short, Desirée has decided that one of the others has lived the life she herself deserved. One day, each of the three women receives a mysterious letter that forces her to examine her past and her present—setting in motion a complex fugue of memory, regret, and confrontation that builds to a shattering climax.
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A Princess of Great Daring!
Tobi Hill-Meyer
When Jamie is ready to tell people that she's really a girl inside, she becomes a princess of great daring in a game she plays with her best friends to gather her courage. She's pleased (but not surprised) that her questing friends turn out to be just as loyal and true as any princess could want.
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Apt. 3
Ezra Jack Keats
On a rainy day two brothers try to discover who is playing the harmonica they hear in their apartment building.
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A Question of Manhood
Robin Reardon
When his brother, a soldier in the Army during the Vietnam War, reveals that he is gay, and then is killed in action, sixteen-year-old Paul Landon, haunted by a knowledge he cannot share, gets a glimpse of who his brother really was when he meets JJ, a new employee at his parent's pet supply store--and a gay college freshman.