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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The Detective's Assistant
Kate Hannigan
In 1859, eleven-year-old Nell goes to live with her aunt, Kate Warne, the first female detective for Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. Nell helps her aunt solve cases, including a mystery surrounding Abraham Lincoln, and the mystery of what happened to Nell's own father. Includes author's note and bibliographic references.
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The Difference Between You and Me
Madeleine George
School outsider Jesse, a lesbian, is having secret trysts with Emily, the popular student council vice president, but when they find themselves on opposite sides of a major issue and Jesse becomes more involved with a student activist, they are forced to make a difficult decision.
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The Different Dragon
Jennifer Bryan
A bedtime story takes Noah on an amazing journey with his cat, where they meet a dragon who doesn't want to be scary and fierce.
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The Distance of Hope
Sid Hite
Fifteen-year-old Yeshe Anjur, the nearly-blind heir to the throne of Padma, undertakes a dangerous journey to far-off Tigristan to find the legendary White Bean Lama who may be able to restore his sight.
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The Dream Jar
Bonnie Pryor
Valentina's family has come from Russia with a wonderful dream--to own a store. Valentina wants to help, but everyone says she's too little to contribute to the glass jar where the dream money is kept. The family becomes discouraged when little money comes in, but Valentina has discovered how she can help make their dream come true.
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The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans: And Other Stories
Johnny Valentine
A collection of five fairy tales about children with gay parents.
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The Edification of Sonya Crane
J. D. Guilford
Transferred to a predominantly black high school in Atlanta, Sonya Crane, passing as biracial, hides her real identity when she is accepted into a clique of friends she never had before until Tandy Herman, the most popular girl in school, threatens to expose her.
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The Education of Little Tree
Forrest Carter
Little Tree is an 8-year-old Cherokee boy, who, during the time of the depression, loses his parents and goes to live with his mountain dwelling grandparents and learns the wisdom of the Cherokee way of life.
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The Elementals
Saundra Mitchell
In 1917, Kate Witherspoon, who has lived a bohemian life with her artist parents, goes to Los Angeles where she meets crippled midwestern farm boy Julian Birch, another runaway, and together they realize they have the ability to triumph over death and time.
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The Evolution of Ethan Poe
Robin Reardon
Ethan Poe, sixteen and gay, struggles for balance while his life conspires to pull him in many different directions. His parents are divorcing; his older brother Kyle is damaging his right hand in the name of purity; his best friend is a Jesus freak who prays for him to be straight; he's desperate to get his driver's license, but he can't seem to get enough supervised driving time. He's just starting to see light in the form of Max Modine, a boy he wants to know much better than he does, when his rural Maine town begins to explode around him. Against his intentions he gets pulled into a pitched and sometimes violent conflict about whether to introduce Intelligent Design into science classrooms. Friendships end, families are torn apart, and the school becomes a battleground. Always seeking elusive balance, Ethan finds his way through a maze of lost friends, new love, and the mysteries of tattoos and power animals, with help from quarters where he never expected to find it. And he gains something better than balance.
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The Face at the Window
Regina Hanson
When Dora goes to take a mango from Miss Nella's tree, she is frightened by the woman's strange behavior.
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The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood
Barb Bentler Ullman
After her parents divorce and she moves to the country with her mother, fourth-grader Willa Jane, anxious and unhappy with the changes in her life, discovers a world of little people called Nutfolk living in the woods around her new home.
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The Fall of Rome
Martha Southgate
Latin instructor Jerome Washington is a man out of place. The lone African-American teacher at the Chelsea School, an elite all-boys boarding school in Connecticut, he has spent nearly two decades trying not to appear too "racial." So he is unnerved when Rashid Bryson, a promising black inner-city student who is new to the school, seeks Washington as a potential ally against Chelsea's citadel of white privilege. Preferring not to align himself with Bryson, Washington rejects the boy's friendship. Surprised and dismayed by Washington's response, Bryson turns instead to Jana Hansen, a middle-aged white divorcée who is also new to the school -- and who has her own reasons for becoming involved in the lives of both Bryson and Washington. Southgate makes her debut as a writer to watch in this compelling, provocative tale of how race and class ensnare Hansen, Washington, and Bryson as they journey toward an inevitable and ultimately tragic confrontation.
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The Family Book
Todd Parr
Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with only one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special no matter what.
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The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island
Dana Alison Levy
Summertime brings the Fletcher Family back to Rock Island where the good times never end, but this summer the boys' favorite lighthouse is all boarded up and with the help from their new neighbors, the Garcia girls, the boys are determined to find out what is really happening with their lighthouse and saving it, no matter what the cost.
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The Favorite Daughter
Allen Say
Yuriko, teased at school for her unusual name and Japanese ancestry, yearns to be more ordinary until her father reminds her of how special she is.
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The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley
Shaun David Hutchinson
Convinced he should have died in the accident that killed his parents and sister, sixteen-year-old Drew lives in a hospital, hiding from employees and his past, until Rusty, set on fire for being gay, turns his life around. Includes excerpts from the superhero comic Drew creates.
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The Flight of a Dove
Alexandra Day
Betsy is a child trapped inside her own body. Her autism keeps her isolated and alone, a world apart from even her mother. After hearing about a school for children with developmental disabilities, Betsy's mother enrolls her with high hopes. But once there, Betsy cries uncontrollably and refuses all attempts to comfort her. She sits with her eyes shut tight and her fists clenched. The head teacher believes that animals sometimes help children overcome problems, so she tries to engage Betsy with the many pets in residence at the school. Betsy shows no interest in any of them -- until the day one special bird manages to catch her attention.
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The Flower Girl Wore Celery
Meryl G. Gordon
When Emma's cousin Hannah gets married, Emma is thrilled to be the flower girl. However, nothing is quite as she expected it to be, from the ring bearer whom she expected to be a bear, to her celery-colored dress, which she expected to be covered in real celery, to the wedding's two brides.
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The Football Girl
Thatcher Heldring
In the summer before high school, Tessa's decision to play football, instead of running cross-country, affects her blossoming romance with football prospect Caleb, her relationship with best friends Marina and Lexie, who are counting on Tessa to try out for cross-country, and her home life with her politically ambitious mother.
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The Foster Care System
Joyce Libal
If your parents were unable to care for you, where would you go? Do you have family or friends who would take you in and support you? Unfortunately, many children don't have this option. The foster care system was put in place to help young people who find themselves without homes. As you follow the story of Bobby and Cara, two children whose family was torn apart, you'll discover more about the foster care system.
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The Friends
Kazumi Yumoto
Curious about death, three sixth-grade boys decide to spy on an old man waiting for him to die, but they end up becoming his friends.
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The Gallery of Unfinished Girls
Lauren Karcz
Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn't been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year. Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings. Despite Mercedes's creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate. At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn't ever before. But Mercedes can't take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can't live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality.
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The Game Can't Love You Back
Karole Cozzco
Eve is used to being the odd woman out. As the only girl on her school's baseball team, she knows exactly how to put sweaty, macho baseball players in their place, and she's learned to focus on one thing and one thing only: being the best pitcher she can be. But when a freak accident forces her school to be absorbed by the neighboring town, Eve has to contend with a new group of guys who aren't used to having a woman on their team. And the new team's star pitcher, Jamie, has no interest in being ousted from his throne. He can't afford to give up his starting slot to a new pitcher--especially to a girl. As the competition between Jamie and Eve starts to heat up, so does their attraction to each other. Can they keep their heads in the game, or will they end up getting played?
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The Game of Love and Death
Martha Brockenbrough
In Seattle in 1937 two seventeen-year-olds, Henry, who is white, and Flora, who is African-American, become the unwitting pawns in a game played by two immortal figures, Love and Death, where they must choose each other at the end, or one of them will die.