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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Wish You Were Here: Teens Write About Parents in Prison
Autumn Spanne and Nora McCarthy
This timely book features true stories written by teens and parents coping with the complicated feelings of guilt, shame, fear, anger, sadness, and longing that have arisen when the parent is incarcerated. The short entries are eloquent with the pain of separation, the struggle to remain involved in each other's lives while discovering and meeting individual and family needs.
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Witches of Ash and Ruin
E. Latimer
Told in multiple voices, seventeen-year-olds Dayna Walsh and Meiner King, witches from rival covens, team up in a small Irish town to seek a serial killer with motives enmeshed in a web of magic and gods.
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With or Without You
Brian Farrey
When eighteen-year-old best friends Evan and Davis of Madison, Wisconsin, join a community center group called "chasers" to gain acceptance and knowledge of gay history, there may be fatal consequences.
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Without Words
Beti Rozen and Peter Hays
Luiz has just arrived in the United States from Brazil which he misses terribly. But the immigrant has a talent for drawing. Encouraged at school, Luiz creates many images, but soon he idealizes his former life. Later, he will discover that Brazil wasn't always so wonderful. Through art, he learns to adapt to his new life.
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With the Wind
Liz Damrell
When a boy who spends most of his time in a wheelchair rides a horse, he finds freedom, power, joy, and strength.
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Wolfie the Bunny
Ame Dyckman
When her parents find a baby wolf on their doorstep and decide to raise him as their own, Dot is certain he will eat them all up until a surprising encounter with a bear brings them closer together.
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Wonder
R. J. Palacio
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
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Wonderful You
Lauren McLaughlin
A lyrical adoption story that tenderly addresses a baby's transition from the care of her birth mother to that of her adoptive parents. This lovely poem illuminates the role of an adopted child's birth mother, respecting her choice to give her child to a loving family. We follow a mother's journey as she carries her child, searches for deserving parents, and ultimately creates a new family. The story offers a version of the process that is full of warmth, care, and joy. An adoptive mother herself, author Lauren McLaughlin was glad for an opportunity to memorialize her family's own fairy tale, and Meilo So's ethereal illustrations breathe magic into an already wondrous experience.
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Wonders of the Invisible World
Christopher Barzak
Seventeen-year-old Aiden has been living like a ghost since his mother tried to stop a family curse by causing him to forget his psychic experiences but when Jarrod, a childhood friend, returns, so do the memories and Aiden is compelled to seek the truth and release them all from the story that has trapped them.
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Words on Bathroom Walls
Julia Walton
Adam has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He sees and hears people who aren't there: Rebecca, a beautiful girl who understands him; the Mob Boss, who harasses him; and Jason, the naked guy whos unfailingly polite. It should be easy to separate the real from the not real, but Adam can't. Still, theres hope. As Adam starts fresh at a new school, he begins a drug trial that helps him ignore his visions. Suddenly everything seems possible, even love. When he meets Maya, a fiercely intelligent girl, he desperately wants to be the great guy that she thinks he is. But then the miracle drug begins to fail, and Adam will do anything to keep Maya from discovering his secret.
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Worm Loves Worm
JJ Austrian
When a worm meets a special worm and they fall in love, you know what happens next: They get married! Because worm loves worm.
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Yafi's Family: An Ethiopian Boys Journey of Love, Loss, and Adoption
Linda Pettitt and Sharon Darrow
Yafi's family recalls his adoption from Ethiopia with stories, memories, and photographs.
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Year of the Jungle
Suzanne Collins
Suzy spends her year in first grade waiting for her father, who is serving in Vietnam, and when the postcards stop coming she worries that he will never make it home.
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Yes I Can!: A Girl and Her Wheelchair
Kendra J. Barrett, Jacqueline B. Toner, and Claire A. B. Freeland
Carolyn is in a wheelchair, but she doesn't let that stop her! She can do almost everything the other kids can, even if sometimes she has to do it a little differently.
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Yes No Maybe So
Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
Jamie Goldberg, who chokes when speaking to strangers, and Maya Rehrman, who is having the worst Ramadan ever, are paired to knock on doors and ask for votes for the local state senate candidate.
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Yoko
Rosemary Wells
When Yoko brings sushi to school for lunch, her classmates make fun of what she eats--until one of them tries it for himself.
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You and Violence in Your Family
John Giacobello
Explains what family violence is, its various types and how children involved in family violence can get help to learn to cope and adjust.
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You and Your Parents' Divorce
Katherine E. Krohn
Provides information for young people about divorce, discussing some of the emotions and situations kids experience when their parents split up, and includes a list of organizations to call for help.
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You are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!
Fiona Rosenbloom
As her bat mitzvah approaches, Stacy Adelaide Friedman of White Plains, New York, has a lot on her mind: her parents have separated, her mother dresses her like an American Girl doll, her younger brother is embarrassing, and she is totally in love with Andy Goldfarb.
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You Can't See the Elephants
Susan Kreller and Elizabeth Gaffney
When she suspects that her young neighbors are being abused by their father, one brave girl takes a stand to protect them.
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You Don't Know Me
David Klass
Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful but shallow classmate, and other problems at school.
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You Have the Right to Know Your Rights: What Teens Should Know
Maurene J. Hinds
Discusses ways in which the rights of young people have evolved over time; explores the rights of minors in school, the health care system, on the job, and in the courts; and explains ways that teens can protect their rights and what to do if their rights are violated.
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You May Already Be a Winner
Ann Dee Ellis
Twelve-year-old Olivia endeavors to care for her younger sister, possibly make a new friend in the quirky and secretive Bart, and keep hope alive for her, her family, and her community of idiosyncratic neighbors at Sunny Pines Trailer Park.
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You're in the Wrong Bathroom!: And 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions About Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People
Laura Erickson-Schroth and Laura A. Jacobs
From Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner to Thomas Beatie (“the pregnant man”) and transgender youth, coverage of trans lives has been exploding—yet so much misinformation persists. Bringing together the medical, social, psychological, and political aspects of being trans in the United States today, “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!”: And 20 Other Myths About Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People unpacks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about transgender and gender-nonconforming people.
