Mark Twain Readers Award
Each year, Missouri schoolchildren in grades 4-8 vote for their favorite book from a list of nominated titles. The Mark Twain Award is awarded to the author of this book by the Missouri Association of School Librarians.
Find these books and more online at http://catalog.coolcat.org
by Peg Kehret
Thirteen-year-old Sunny, accompanied by a stray dog, takes advantage of a windfall to travel from her Nebraska foster home to Enumclaw, Washington, to find the twin sister from whom she was separated at age three.
by Peg Kehret
Fourteen-year-old Amy's excitement over her first babysitting job ends when she and her three-year-old charge are kidnapped, but a daily videorecording sent to little Kendra's parents allows Amy to send clues, in hopes of being rescued before the kidnappers decide they no longer need her.
by Mary Downing Hahn
When thirteen-year-old Ali spends the summer with her aunt and cousin at the family's vacation home, she stumbles upon a secret that her mother and aunt have been hiding for over thirty years.
by Rick Riordan
Demi-god Percy Jackson and his friends must journey into the Sea of Monsters to save their camp. But first Percy will discover a secret that makes him wonder whether being claimed as Poseidon's son is an honor or a cruel joke.
by Rick Riordan
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson learns he is a demigod, the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea. His mother sends him to a summer camp for demigods where he and his new friends set out on a quest to prevent a war between the gods. (Film title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief)
by Peg Kehret
Thirteen-year-old Bonnie has a feeling of foreboding on the very day that her six-year-old brother Matt and their dog Pookie are abducted, and she becomes involved in a major search effort as well as a frightening adventure. Matt is missing. Bonnie's brother left his classroom to use the bathroom --and disappeared. A police dog traces his scent to the curb, where he apparently got into a vehicle. But why would Matt go anywhere with a stranger? Overwhelmed with fear, Bonnie discovers that her dog is gone, too. Was Pookie used as a lure for Matt? Bonnie makes one big mistake in her attempt to find her brother. In a chilling climax on a Washington State ferry, Bonnie and Matt must outsmart their abductor or pay with their lives.
by Jeanne DuPrau
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
by Janet Lee Carey
After having a near-death experience in the accident that killed his younger sister, Wenny, eleven-year-old Will copes by writing her letters.
by Roland Smith
When Jack Osborne is befriended by his school's custodian and a Basque girl, he begins to adjust to his family's sudden move to Elko, Nevada, after entering the Witness Security Program, but the drug cartel against which his father will testify is determined to track them down.
by Kate DiCamillo
Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.
by Carol Gorman
Starting middle school in a new town, brainy Jerry Flack changes his image from "dork" to "cool kid," only to discover that he'd rather be himself.
by Louis Sachar
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Sixth-grader Marty and his family try to help their rough neighbor, Judd Travers, change his mean ways, even though their West Virginia community continues to expect the worst of him.
by Peg Kehret
The author describes her battle against polio and her efforts to overcome its debilitating effects.
by Barbara Williams
In 1912, thirteen-year-old Albert considers his younger sister a pest, but things change when they travel with their mother and uncle aboard the Titanic and are caught up in its tragic sinking.
by Mary Downing Hahn
When he goes to spend the summer with his great-aunt in the family's old house, eleven-year-old Drew is drawn eighty years into the past to trade places with his great-great-uncle who is dying of diptheria.
by Betty Ren Wright
Twelve-year-old Gwen, an orphan who comes to live with the Mercy family, discovers that the house is haunted by the ghost of a sad-looking young girl and is determined to solve the mystery behind her appearances.
by June R. Wood
Thirteen-year-old Delrita, whose unhappy life has caused her to hide from the world, loves her uncle Punky but sometimes feels ashamed of his behavior because he has Down syndrome.
by Phyllis R. Naylor
When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs.
by Jerry Spinelli
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
by Mary Downing Hahn
After Ashley and Kristi find an antique doll buried in old Miss Cooper's garden, they discover that they can enter a ghostly turn-of-the-century world by going through a hole in the hedge.
by Lois Lowry
The adventures of Sam, Anastasia Krupnik's younger brother, from his first day as a newborn through his mischievous times as a toddler.
by Louis Sachar
An unmanageable, but lovable, eleven-year-old misfit learns to believe in himself when he gets to know the new school counselor, who is a sort of misfit, too.
by Eve Bunting
Janey worries that the sixth grade Rabbit Reading Club's all-night sleepover will expose her fear of the dark, but it turns out that she is not the only member with a secret.
by Willo Davis Roberts
A baby sitter and her three willful charges make a formidable team to outwit their surprised kidnappers.
by Robert Kimmel Smith
Upset that he has to give up the room he loves to his grandfather, Pete decides to declare war in an attempt to get it back.
by Betty Ren Wright
A dollhouse filled with a ghostly light in the middle of the night and dolls that have moved from where she last left them lead Amy and her mentally challenged sister to unravel the mystery surrounding grisly murders that took place years ago.
by Pat Mauser McCord
The frequent target of a bully, eleven-year-old Ben gets sick at the thought of fighting back until his father insists he take a self-defense course, and Ben learns that it is okay to be himself.
by Betty Miles
Ten-year-old Larry is "discovered" on the street and asked to appear in a television commercial. Only later does he find out what he is advertising.
by Willo Davis Roberts
A 10-year-old girl, who has always looked different from other children, discovers that she not only has unusual powers but that there are others like her.
by Marian T. Place
A ten-year-old boy, placed once again with new foster parents, becomes involved in a search for Bigfoot.
by Robert Newton Peck
Rob manages Soup's campaign for class president in their small Vermont town.
by Betsy Byars
Three lonely foster children learn to care about themselves and each other.
by Roger Drury
The discovery of a bike-riding mouse in the bathtub is just the beginning of a series of humorous communications for the Berryfield family.
by Beverly Cleary
Six-year-old Ramona tries to cope with an unsympathetic first-grade teacher.
by Sid Fleischman
When Professor Pepper gives Opie tickets to a ghost-raising instead of a nickel in payment for being guided through the dense fog, Opie manages to make money anyway by helping to thwart a bank robbery.
by Scott Corbett
The Panthers try desperately to convincingly lose a baseball game when they find out the winners must play a girls' team.
by Thomas Rockwell
Two boys set out to prove that worms can make a delicious meal.
by Robert C. Lee
A shy undersized sixteen-year-old finds himself suddenly popular when he becomes star of the track team.
by Robert O'Brien
Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment in a laboratory made them wise and long lived.
by William H. Armstrong
Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.



