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 Year I Didn't Eat
Samuel Pollen
Fourteen-year-old Max records his efforts to control his anorexia in a therapist-prescribed journal that also chronicles his parents' difficult relationship and his feelings for a new girl at school, Evie.
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The Year of the Baby
Andrea Cheng
Anna and her best friends Laura and Camille return in an engaging new story. Anna's family has adopted a new baby from China, but her new sister is not thriving and refuses to eat. When Anna and her friends are assigned a science experiment in school, they decide to use the assignment as a way to help Baby Kaylee.
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The Year of the Fortune Cookie
Andrea Cheng
Eleven-year-old Anna takes a trip to China and learns more about herself and her Chinese heritage.
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The Year of the Perfect Christmas
Gloria Houston
Ruthie and her mother wonder how they will fulfill their obligation of getting the perfect Christmas tree to the town for the holiday celebration, since Papa has left the Appalachian area to go to war.
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The Year the Swallows Came Early
Kathryn Fitzmaurice
After her father is sent to jail, eleven-year-old Groovy Robinson must decide if she can forgive the failings of someone she loves.
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They Never Came Back
Caroline B. Cooney
When fifteen-year-old Cathy decides to carpool from Norwalk to tony Greenwich, Connecticut, to study Latin in summer school, she does not expect the shocking events that occured five years earlier to suddenly come flooding back into her relatively settled life.
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Things Not Seen
Andrew Clements
Bobby Phillips is an average fifteen-year-old-boy. Until the morning he wakes up and can't see himself in the mirror. Not blind, not dreaming-Bobby is just plain invisible. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby's new condition; even his dad the physicist can't figure it out. For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life. He's a missing person. Then he meets Alicia. She's blind, and Bobby can't resist talking to her, trusting her. But people are starting to wonder where Bobby is. Bobby knows that his invisibility could have dangerous consequences for his family and that time is running out. He has to find out how to be seen again-before it's too late.
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Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry
Susan Vaught
A family mystery leads Dani Beans to investigate the secrets of Ole Miss and the dark history of race relations in Oxford, Mississippi.
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This Book is Gay
James Dawson
Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer. Transgender. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. There's a long-running joke that, after "coming out," a lesbian, gay guy, bisexual, or trans person should receive a membership card and instruction manual. THIS IS THAT INSTRUCTION MANUAL. You're welcome. Inside you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask: from sex to politics, hooking up to stereotypes, coming out and more. This candid and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBT also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention illustrations.
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This Day in June
Gayle E. Pitman
A picture book illustrating a Pride parade. The endmatter serves as a primer on LGBT history and culture and explains the references made in the story.
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This is Kind of an Epic Love Story
Kheryn Callender
Budding screenwriter Nate, sixteen, finds his conviction that happy endings do not happen in real life sorely tested when his childhood best friend and crush, Oliver James Hernandez, moves back to town
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This Is My Family: A First Look At Same-Sex Parents
Pat Thomas
This new title in Barron's A First Look At series encourages kids of preschool through early school age to understand and overcome problems that might trouble them in social and family relationships. Written by an experienced psychotherapist and counselor on a level that is always understandable to younger children, this book seeks to promote positive interactions among children, parents, and teachers. Thoughtful text is supplemented with child-friendly color illustrations on every page. A two-page How to Use This Book section for parents and teachers appears at the back of each book. This is My Family takes a child's point of view in its discussion of same-sex marriage. Its message is intended both for children of gay or lesbian parents, as well as for the kids and parents of the children's friends and playmates.
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This Side of Home
Reneé Watson
Twins Nikki and Maya Younger always agreed on most things, but as they head into their senior year they react differently to the gentrification of their Portland, Oregon neighborhood and the new--white--family that moves in after their best friend and her mother are evicted.
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Those Shoes
Maribeth Boelts
Jeremy, who longs to have the black high tops that everyone at school seems to have but his grandmother cannot afford, is excited when he sees them for sale in a thrift shop and decides to buy them even though they're the wrong size.
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Three Little Words
Sarah N. Harvey
When Sid leaves his foster family on their remote island home in search of the mother he doesn't remember and a brother he's never met, he's ill-prepared for the surprises he finds.
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Three Little Words: A Memoir
Ashley Rhodes-Courter
"Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system.
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Three Names of Me
Mary Cummings
A girl adopted from China explains that her three names--one her birth mother whispered in her ear, one the babysitters at her orphanage called her, and one her American parents gave her--are each an important part of who she is. Includes scrapbooking ideas for other girls adopted from China.
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Three Pennies
Melanie Crowder
In San Francisco, eleven-year-old Marin desperately searches for her birthmother knowing time is running out before she is adopted, and discovers for the first time in her life what it feels like to be truly wanted by someone.
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Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies
Ann Turner
A boy who came from far away to be adopted by a couple in this country remembers how unfamiliar and frightening some of the things were in his new home, before he accepted the love to be found there.
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Through My Window
Tony Bradman
When Jo is sick and has to stay home from school, her mother promises her a special surprise, and all day long she waits eagerly to see what it might be.
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Through the Eyes of a Child
Jimena Licitra
William was a happy little boy who lived with his parents in a green house with a lovely little garden, decorated with paper flowers. But one day everything changed. It was as if he'd been torn in two and turned into two different kids: one who went with his dad, and another who stayed with his mom. Through the Eyes of a Child reminds us of the importance of communicating, and that after a change in a family's structure, a child can feel “whole" again and grow up happily...even though his parents have separated.
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Thursday with Helenna and Alex
Phylliss DelGreco, Jaclyn Roth, and Kathryn Silverio
In "Thursday with Helenna and Alex," Jessie has a play date with two of her best friends. As the children conduct an "archeological dig" in Helenna's backyard (with the energetic and hilarious help of Buddy, the dog), they uncover some surprising artifacts and discover the real key to their friendship. "Thursday with Helenna and Alex" is the fourth book in The Jessie Books series, which offers an inspiring story for each day of the week, featuring a precocious little girl who lives with her two moms in Queens, New York.
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Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1)
Collen Houck
Seventeen-year-old Oregon teenager Kelsey forms a bond with a circus tiger who is actually one of two brothers, Indian princes Ren and Kishan, who were cursed to live as tigers for eternity, and she travels with him to India where the tiger's curse may be broken once and for all.
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Tiger's Fall
Molly Bang
After eleven-year-old Lupe is partially paralyzed in an accident in her Mexican village, other handicapped people help her realize that her life can still have purpose.
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Tigger And Jasper's New Home
Cheryl Gillespie
A heart warming story of two kittens who through amusing happenings in their new home soon learn that Christie, their guardian, is blind.Sharing her true experiences of Tigger and Jasper, the author, blind from early childhood, gently acquaints children to Christie, a young blind woman.With expression and humor, the story comes to life as captivated by the brilliant illustrations of Michael LeBlanc.