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 Letter Q: A Queer Writers' Notes to Their Younger Selves
Sarah Moon
If you received a letter from your older self, what do you think it would say? What do you wish it would say? That the boy you were crushing on in History turns out to be gay too, and that you become boyfriends in college? That the bully who is making your life miserable will one day become so insignificant that you won't remember his name until he shows up at your book signing? In this anthology, sixty-three award-winning authors such as Michael Cunningham, Amy Bloom, Jacqueline Woodson, Gregory Maguire, David Levithan, and Armistead Maupin make imaginative journeys into their pasts, telling their younger selves what they would have liked to know then about their lives as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender people. Through stories, in pictures, with bracing honesty, these are words of love and understanding, reasons to hold on for the better future ahead. They will tell you things about your favorite authors that you never knew before. And they will tell you about yourself.
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The Liberation of Gabriel King
K. L. Going
In Georgia during the summer of 1976, Gabriel, a white boy who is being bullied, and Frita, an African American girl who is facing prejudice, decide to overcome their many fears together as they enter fifth grade.
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The Lines We Cross
Randa Abdel-Fattah
Michael's parents are leaders of a new anti-immigrant political party called Aussie Values which is trying to halt the flood of refugees from the Middle East; Mina fled Afghanistan with her family ten years ago, and just wants to concentrate on fitting in and getting into college--but the mutual attraction they feel demands that they come to terms with their family's concerns and decide where they stand in the ugly anti-Muslim politics of the time.
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The Line Tender
Kate Allen
Wherever the sharks led, Lucy Everhart's marine-biologist mother was sure to follow. In fact, she was on a boat far off the coast of Massachusetts, collecting shark data when she died suddenly. Lucy was seven. Since then Lucy and her father have kept their heads above water—thanks in large part to a few close friends and neighbors. But June of her twelfth summer brings more than the end of school and a heat wave to sleepy Rockport. On one steamy day, the tide brings a great white—and then another tragedy, cutting short a friendship everyone insists was "meaningful" but no one can tell Lucy what it all meant. To survive the fresh wave of grief, Lucy must grab the line that connects her depressed father, a stubborn fisherman, and a curious old widower to her mother's unfinished research on the Great White's return to Cape Cod. If Lucy can find a way to help this unlikely quartet follow the sharks her mother loved, she'll finally be able to look beyond what she's lost and toward what's left to be discovered.
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The Lions of Little Rock
Kristin Levine
In 1958 Little Rock, Arkansas, painfully shy twelve-year-old Marlee sees her city and family divided over school integration, but her friendship with Liz, a new student, helps her find her voice and fight against racism.
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The Little Green Goose
Adele Sansone and J. Alison James
Mr. Goose finds an abandoned egg, hatches it, and raises a peculiar green-skinned long-tailed chick, who worries about his identity but comes to recognize that he has a loving parent.
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The Little Lame Prince
Rosemary Wells
Cruel Osvaldo rules El Cordoba - keeping the people poor and unhappy. The true heir to the throne, Francisco, has been banished to a tower. Orphaned and crippled when he was very young, Francisco grows up unaware that he should be king. But one day he discovers his true idenity.
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The Lopez Family: Science Fair Day
Monica Bey-Clarke and Cheril N. Clarke
The Lopez Family: Science Fair Day is the first story in a fun series featuring Felix Lopez and his two dads. We are introduced to a family of scientists who love to invent new things like robots and Super Magic Glue. This story takes you on a journey as Felix learns how to cope in difficult situations, and he teaches children life lessons by his examples. Felix invents a remote control airplane for his school's science fair contest. Throughout the book, Felix encounters various obstacles, but he finds ways to overcome his challenges with the help, love, and support of his two dads. This tale touches upon subjects such as bullying, not giving up, and reinforces basic moral values such as honesty and integrity. Through this affectionate story, Felix shows children that it's okay to be themselves and to always keep a positive attitude even when times seem rough.
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The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1)
Rick Riordan
Jason, Piper, and Leo, three students from a school for "bad kids," find themselves at Camp Half-Blood, where they learn that they are demigods and begin a quest to free Hera, who has been imprisoned by Mother Earth herself.
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The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl and Random Boy
Maria Jaskulka
Forgotten Girl is going through the most difficult time of her life-- the breakup of her parents, and her mom's resulting depression. She meets Random Boy, a hot guy who, like her, feels like an outcast and secretly writes poetry to deal with everything going on in his life. They come from opposite sides of the tracks, yet they find understanding in each other when they lay bare their life stories through the poetry they write and share with each other.
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The Lost Treasures for the Orphans
Carol Blazer
This adventure is about Mason, his two dads & his grandma. The story begins with a young boy realizing how much he has. Through a reporter, the family learns about a local orphanage. These children neither have parents, grandparents, toys, or clothing of their own. Mason has an idea! He wants to share what he has with the orphans. Through this experience he learns the gift of giving.
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The Lottery Plus One
Emma Donoghue
Once upon a time, two couples with Jamaican, Mohawk, Indian, and Scottish ethnic roots won the lottery and bought a big house where all of them, four adults and seven adopted and biological children, could live together in harmony--but change is inevitable, especially when a disagreeable grandfather comes to stay.
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The Lotterys Plus One
Emma Donoghue
Once upon a time, two couples with Jamaican, Mohawk, Indian, and Scottish ethnic roots won the lottery and bought a big house where all of them, four adults and seven adopted and biological children, could live together in harmony--but change is inevitable, especially when a disagreeable grandfather comes to stay.
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The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali
Rukhsana Ali
Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali is looking forward to going to Caltech and getting away from her conservative Muslim parents' expectation that she will marry, especially since she is in love with her girlfriend Ariana--but when her parents catch her kissing Ariana, they whisk Rukhsana off to Bangladesh and a world of tradition and arranged marriages, and she must find the courage to fight for the right to choose her own path.
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The Love Interest
Cale Dietrich
There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets. Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad? Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.
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The Lovely Shoes
Susan Shreve
In 1950s Ohio, ninth-grader Franny feels isolated and self-conscious at high school because of her deformed leg and feet, but her irrepressibly high-spirited mother is determined to find shoes for Franny to wear at the school dances.
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The Lunch Thief
Anne C. Bromley
Rafael is angry that a new student is stealing lunches, but he takes time to learn what the real problem is before acting.
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The Magic Mirror: Concerning a Lonely Princess, a Foundling Girl, a Scheming King and a Pickpocket Squirrel
Susan Hill Long
From the time she was a crippled baby, left in a church, Maggie's life has never been easy but when she glimpses her destiny in a magic mirror, she goes off on a quest to find her father and, along the way, finds happiness, as well.
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The Mailbox
Audrey Shafer
When twelve-year-old Gabe tries to hide his uncle's death from the local authorities, he is not prepared for what happens when this secret is discovered.
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The Man from the Other Side
Uri Orlev
Living on the outskirts of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, fourteen-year-old Marek and his grandparents shelter a Jewish man in the days before the Jewish uprising.
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The Manny Files
Christian Burch
A shy young boy learns how to be more outgoing and self-confident from his male nanny.
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The Mariposa Club
Rigoberto Gonzalez
Incoming seniors, Maui, Trini, Isaac, and Liberace, known as the Fierce Foursome, decide to create a gay/straight alliance at Caliente Valley High School.
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The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3)
Rick Riordan
Uniting with Jason, Piper, and Leo after the dangerous quest in "The Son of Neptune," Percy, Hazel, and Frank wonder who will be chosen to fulfill the Prophecy of Seven, completing their group's number, and sail with them to an ancient land to find the mysterious Doors of Death.
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The Marvels
Brian Selznick Selznick
In 1766, a boy, Billy Marvel, is shipwrecked, rescued, and goes on to found a brilliant family of actors that flourishes in London until 1900--and nearly a century later, Joseph Jervis, runs away from home, seeking refuge with his uncle in London, and is captivated by the Marvel house, with its portraits and ghostly presences.
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The Maze
Will Hobbs
Rick, a fourteen-year-old foster child, escapes from a juvenile detention facility near Las Vegas and travels to Canyonlands National Park in Utah where he meets a bird biologist working on a project to reintroduce condors to the wild.