 The purpose of the Gateway Readers
Award is to promote literature, literacy and reading in Missouri
high schools, and to recognize authors and illustrators of books that are
favorites of Missouri students in these grades. Each year, Missouri
students in grades 9-12 vote for their favorite book from a list of
nominated titles. The Gateway Readers Award is awarded to the author of
this book by the Missouri Association
of School Librarians. Click on the title to view the Library's online
catalog. |
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| 2008 - 2009 Gateway Readers Award Nominees |
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Just Listen by Sarah Dessen |
| Isolated from friends who believe the worst because she has not been truthful with them, sixteen-year-old Annabel finds an ally in classmate Owen, whose honesty and passion for music help her to face and share what really happened at the end-of-the-year party that changed her life. |
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Copper Sun by Sharon Draper |
| Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves. |
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The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson |
| On the payroll as an assistant to her coroner father, seventeen-year-old Cameryn Mahoney uses her knowledge of forensic medicine to catch the killer of a friend while putting herself in terrible danger. |
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Diva by Alex Flinn |
| Despite her mother's objections, sixteen-year-old Caitlin determines to pursue her dream of becoming an opera singer by attending a performing arts school in Miami. |
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What Happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles |
| After his younger brother commits suicide, Kyle Kirby decides to exact revenge on the person he holds responsible. |
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Born to Rock Gordon Korman |
| High school senior Leo Caraway, a conservative Republican, learns that his biological father is a punk rock legend. |
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Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson |
| After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe. Alone in the world, teen-aged Hattie is driven to prove up on her uncle's homesteading claim. For years, sixteen-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends--especially Charlie, fighting in France--through letters and articles for her hometown paper. Her backbreaking quest for a home is lightened by her neighbors, the Muellers. But she feels threatened by pressure to be a "Loyal" American, forbidding friendships with folks of German descent. Despite everything, Hattie's determined to stay until a tragedy causes her to discover the true meaning of home. |
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Sold by Patricia McCormick |
| Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape. |
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Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer |
| Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. |
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Terrier: The Legend of Beka Cooper #1 by Tamora Pierce |
| When sixteen-year-old Beka becomes "Puppy" to a pair of "Dogs," as the Provost's Guards are called, she uses her police training, natural abilities, and a touch of magic to help them solve the case of a murdered baby in Tortall's Lower City. |
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Dead Connection by Charlie Price |
| A loner who communes with the dead in the town cemetery hears the voice of a murdered cheerleader and tries to convince the adults that he knows what happened to her. |
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A Brief Chapter In My Impossible Life by Diana Reinhardt |
| Sixteen-year-old atheist Simone Turner-Bloom's life changes in unexpected ways when her parents convince her to make contact with her biological mother, an agnostic from a Jewish family who is losing her battle with cancer. |
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Notes From the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick |
| After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness. |
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Rooftop by Paul Volponi |
| Still reeling from seeing police shoot his unarmed cousin to death on the roof of a New York City housing project, seventeen-year-old Clay is dragged into the whirlwind of political manipulation that follows. |
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Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin |
| Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother. |
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| 2007 - 2008 Gateway Readers Award Nominees |
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A
Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb |
| After benignly haunting a series of people for
130 years, Helen meets a teenage boy who can see her and together they
unlock the mysteries of their pasts. |
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Amazing
Grace by Megan Shull |
| Tennis has a new "it" girl and her name is
Grace Kincaid. The only problem is -- Grace has suddenly realized that
being a teen sensation isn't all it's cracked up to be. With fame and
fortune just a backswing away, all she really wants is to be
...NORMAL! |
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Black
and White by Paul Volponi |
| Two star high school basketball
players, one black and one white, experience the justice system differently
after committing a crime together and getting caught. |
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Code
Orange by Caroline Cooney |
| While conducting research for a
school paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an envelope containing 100-year-old
smallpox scabs and fears that he has infected himself and all of New York
City. |
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Dark
Angel by David Klass |
| When his older brother is
released from prison, seventeen-year-old Jeff's family secret is revealed,
causing upheaval in his home, school and love life. A taut psychological
thriller for teens nbsp; Seventeen-year-old Jeff thought he would never
again have to deal with his older brother, a convicted murderer serving a
life sentence. But after six years, Troy's sentence has been overturned on
a technicality and he is released from prison. He returns to a family
deeply divided about having him back home. Jeff can't forget how his life
was disrupted by his brother, how his family had to move to another state
and start over. Still, his parents believe things will be different now.
But Troy's return makes a mess of Jeff 's life - at home, at school, and
with his girlfriend. When Jeff 's rival on the soccer field turns up
missing, Jeff suspects Troy is involved, and he sets out to prove it. But
nothing could prepare Jeff for what happens as he gets closer to the
truth. |
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Fade
to Black by Alex Flinn |
| An HIV-positive high school
student hospitalized after being attacked, the bigot accused of the crime,
and the only witness, a classmate with Down Syndrome, reveal how the assult
has changed their lives as they tell of its aftermath. |
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Fake
ID by Walter Sorrells |
| After a lifetime of moving and
assuming new identities, sixteen-year-old Chass begins to piece together
the disturbing past that haunts her and her mother and which involves a
mysterious tape, a deceased popular singer, and the secrets of several
people in a small Alabama town. |
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If
I have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? by Melissa Kantor |
| When the father of high school
sophomore, Lucy Norton, remarries, Lucy finds herself tormented by two
bratty stepsisters and a wicked stepmother. |
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Invisible by Pete Hautman |
| Doug and Andy are unlikely best
friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular
student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a
bond that nothing can sever. |
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I
will Plant You a Lilac Tree by Laura Hillman |
| In 1942 Hannelore Wolff made a
difficult decision, one that changed her life forever. She left the comfort
and safety of her boarding school in Berlin, Germany, and volunteered to be
sent to a Polish ghetto. The Gestapo had already killed her father and were
deporting her mother and brothers. Hannelore could not bear to be separated
from what was left of her family so she chose to go with them. It was the
beginning of her long journey through what turned out to be eight
concentration camps, including Auschwitz. In one of the camps, Hannelore
fell in love with a young man named Dick Hillman. After a few months they
were separated, but Dick told Hannelore, "I will find you, wherever you
are." He kept his promise. They were both put on Oskar Schindler's famous
list and married when they were reunited. I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is
one woman's incredible story of finding courage, strength, and love during
one of the most horrific times of the modern era. |
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Maximum
Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson |
| After the mutant Erasers abduct
the youngest member of their group, the "birdkids," who are the result of
genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling
to understand their own origins and purpose. |
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The
Perfect Shot by Elaine Alphin |
| Brian uses basketball to block
out memories of his girlfriend and her family who were gunned down a year
ago, but the upcoming murder trial and a high school history assignment
force him to face the past and decide how far he should go to see justice
served. Includes facts about miscarriages of justice in American
history. |
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Runner by Carl Deuker |
| Living with his alcoholic father
on a broken-down sailboat on Puget Sound has been hard on
seventeen-year-old Chance Taylor, but when his love of running leads to a
high-paying job, he quickly learns that the money is not worth the
risk. |
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Twilight by Stephanie Meyer |
| When seventeen-year-old Bella
leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an
exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming
attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human. |
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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld |
| Everybody gets to be supermodel
gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen,
and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's
world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a
repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a
high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In
just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't
sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When
Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world --
and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she
can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all.
The choice Tally makes changes her world forever |
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| 2006 - 2007 Award Winners |
| 1st Place Crank by Ellen Hopkins |
| Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter,
gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit
her absentee father, Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is
the exact opposite of Kristina. Through a boy, Bree meets the monster:
crank. And what begins as a wild ecstatic ride turns into a struggle
through hell for her mind, her soul - her life. |
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| 2nd Place My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult |
| Kate Fitzgerald has a vicious form of
leukemia. To treat her symptoms, she needs the cord blood of a genetically
perfect donor. Her parents find a geneticist to help them select the embryo
from which they can create a second daughter and a donor for Kate. Enter
Anna. For 13 years Anna gives platelets, bone marrow, and cells to her
sister, helping her to fight the disease. However, when she is asked to
donate a kidney, Anna sues her parents for medical emancipation, wanting to
control the decisions over her body. Kate is dying, Anna is suing, and
older brother Jesse is out committing arson. Amazingly, the Fitzgerald
family stays together and sees the issue through many surprising twists and
turns, wrestling with ethical and moral questions that have no "right"
answer. |
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| 3rd Place Jude by Kate Morgenroth |
| Still reeling from his drug-dealing father's
murder, moving in with the wealthy mother he never knew, and transferring
to a private school, fifteen-year-old Jude is tricked into pleading guilty
to a crime he did not commit. |
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| 2005 - 2006 Winners |
| 1st Place - Adult
Division The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown |
| In a two-day span,
American symbologist Robert Langdon finds himself accused of murdering the
curator of the Louvre, on the run through the streets of Paris and London,
and teamed up with French cryptologist Sophie Neveu to uncover nothing less
than the secret location of the Holy Grail. |
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| 1st Place - Young
Adult Division Eragon by Christopher Paolini |
| In Aagaesia, a
fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon finds a mysterious
stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic,
and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters. |
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| 3rd Place Bottled
Up by Jaye Murray |
| A high school boy
comes to terms with his drug addiction, life with an alcoholic father, and
a younger brother who looks up to him. |
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| 2004 - 2005
Winners |
| 1st Place The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold |
| When we first meet
Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from that strange
new place she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a
fourteen-year-old, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope. Susie
watches life continuing after her brutal death: her loved ones holding out
hope she'll be found, her killer covering his tracks. As months pass
without leads, she sees her family contorted by loss. With compassion,
longing, and a growing understanding, she sees them face the worst -- then,
in time, pass through grief and begin to mend. |
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| 2nd Place This
Lullaby by Sarah Dessen |
| Raised by a mother
who's had five husbands, eighteen-year-old Remy believes in short-term,
no-commitment relationships until she meets Dexter, a rock band
musician. |
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| 3rd Place - Hanging On to Max by Margaret Bechard |
| When his girlfriend
decides to give their baby away, seventeen-year-old Sam is determined to
keep him and raise him alone. |
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| 2003 - 2004
Winners |
| 1st Place - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares |
| Four best girlfriends
spend the biggest summer of their lives enchanted by a magical pair of
pants. |
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| 2nd Place - Breathing Underwater by Alex Flin |
| Sent to counseling
for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal,
sixteen-year-old Nick recounts his relationship with Caitlin, examines his
controlling behavior and anger, and describes living with his abusive
father. |
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| 3rd Place - I Am Morgan Le Fay by Nancy Springer |
| In a war-torn England
where her half-brother Arthur will eventually become king, the young Morgan
le Fay comes to realize that she has magic powers and links to the faerie
world. |
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