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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Who Do I Look Like?
Mary Schulte
A young girl finds that she looks a little like everyone in her family, but mostly like herself.
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Whoever You Are
Mem Fox
Despite the differences between people around the world, there are similarities that join us together, such as pain, joy, and love.
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Who's in a Family?
Robert Skutch
Who is in a family, and in particular, who is in your family? Chances are, your family is unique, like no one else's, and that's just fine!
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Who's In My Family?: All About Our Families
Robie H. Harris
Nellie and her little brother Gus discuss all kinds of families during a day at the zoo and dinner at home with their relatives afterwards.
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Why Am I Different?
Norma Simon
Portrays everyday situations in which children see themselves as "different" in family life, preferences, and aptitudes, and yet feel that being different is all right.
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Why Don't I Have a Daddy? A Story of Donor Conception
George Anne Clay
As the little lion cub notices all different types of families, he starts to question his own family. His family consists of his mother and him. The little cub learns that while there is no "daddy" in his family, there is a donor lion who made his life possible. Through his mother's love and nurturing, the lion cub understands how special he and his family are.
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Why Johnny Doesn't Flap: NT is OK!
Clay Morton and Gail Morton
Johnny is different. He is never exactly on time, he can't seem to stick to a routine and he often speaks in cryptic idioms. Johnny is neurotypical, but that's OK.
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Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories
Lore Segal
Young Mole and his grandmother live together and get along well enough most of the time, but in each of these four stories there is an exception to the rule
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Wide Awake
David Levithan
In the not-too-distant future, when a gay Jewish man is elected president of the United States, sixteen-year-old Duncan examines his feelings for his boyfriend, his political and religious beliefs, and tries to determine his rightful place in the world.
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Wild Beauty
Anna-Marie McLemore
Love grows such strange things. Anna-Marie McLemore's debut novel The Weight of Feathers garnered fabulous reviews and was a finalist for the prestigious YALSA Morris Award, and her second novel, When the Moon was Ours, was longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Now, in Wild Beauty, McLemore introduces a spellbinding setting and two characters who are drawn together by fate―and pulled apart by reality. For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They’ve also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens. The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.
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Wild Blues
Beth Kephart
Thirteen-year-old Lizzie relates, through a victim statement, her harrowing journey through the Adirondacks seeking her disabled friend, Matias, who was kidnapped by escaped convicts.
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Wild Life
Cynthia C. DeFelice
When twelve-year-old Eric's parents are deployed to Iraq, he goes to live with grandparents he hardly knows in a small town in North Dakota, but his grandfather's hostility and the threat of losing the dog he has rescued are too much and Eric runs away.
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Wildthorn
Jane Eagland
Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove is locked away in the Wildthorn Hall mental institution, where she is stripped of her identity and left to wonder who has tried to destroy her life.
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Will
Maria Boyd
Seventeen-year-old Will's behavior has been getting him in trouble at his all-boys school in Sydney, Australia, but his latest punishment, playing in the band for a musical production, gives him new insights into his fellow students and helps him cope with an incident he has tried to forget.
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Willful Machines
Tim Floreen
In a near-future America, a sentient computer program named Charlotte has turned terrorist, but Lee Fisher, the closeted son of an ultraconservative President, is more concerned with keeping his Secret Service detail from finding out about his developing romance with Nico, the new guy at school. But when the spider-like robots that roam the school halls begin acting even stranger than usual, Lee realizes he is Charlotte's next target.
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Will Grayson, Will Grayson
David Levithan and John Green
When two teens, one gay and one straight, meet accidentally and discover that they share the same name, their lives become intertwined as one begins dating the other's best friend, who produces a play revealing his relationship with them both.
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William's Doll
Charlotte Zolotow
More than anything, William wants a doll. He enjoys the other toys his father gives him, like a basketball and a train set, but he still wants a doll. William's grandmother is the only one who really understands his wish.
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Willow and the Wedding
Denise Brennan-Nelson
Bullied as a gay teenager, especially while performing in a high school musical, Uncle Ash, who is marrying his boyfriend, refuses to dance at his wedding, but flower girl Willow is determined to change her favorite uncle's mind.
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Willow King
Chris Platt
Thirteen-year-old Katie, who is herself physically challenged, saves a crippled foal from euthanasia and nurses him back to health and eventual championships.
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Willow King: Race the Wind
Chris Platt
Determined to ride her horse in the Kentucky Derby despite her physical handicap, Katie overcomes great obstacles and even helps a blind girl face her own kind of challenge.
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Wintering Well
Lea Wait
Twelve-year-old Will Ames and his sister Cassie go to stay with their sister in nearby Wiscasset, Maine, after a disabling accident ruins Will's plans for a career in farming.
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Wired Man and Other Freaks of Nature
Sashi Kaufman
Ben has to wear hearing aids, but being inseparable from the super-popular Tyler allows him to think of himself as normal. But Tyler blows him off senior year and Ben needs to rethink who he is--and who Tyler is.
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Wishing for Kittens
Ursula Ferro
Tanny the cat was old enough to be a mother. Rachel (seven-and-a-half years old) asked her moms, "Couldn't we let Tanny have kittens just once?" What would the family do if they had a house full of too many kittens?
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Wishworks, Inc.
Stephanie Tolan
When he is granted his wish for a dog from Wishworks, Inc., third-grader Max is disappointed to find that his new pet is nothing like the dog of his imagination.
