The Gateway Readers Award

THE GATEWAY READERS AWARD

2012-2013 Nominees

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.

2012 - 2013 Gateway Readers Award Nominees
	A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
	This is the remarkable story of one endearing dog's search for his purpose over the course of several lives. More than just another charming dog story, this touches on the universal quest for an answer to life's most basic question: Why are we here?

	Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
	After the death of her father, Amy, a high school student, and Roger, a college freshman, set out on a carefully planned road trip from California to Connecticut, but wind up taking many detours, forcing Amy to face her worst fears and come to terms with her grief and guilt.

	Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
	After she dies in a car crash, teenage Samantha relives the day of her death over and over again until, on the seventh day, she finally discovers a way to save herself.

	Blank Confession by Pete Hautman
	A new and enigmatic student named Shayne appears at high school one day, befriends the smallest boy in the school, and takes on a notorious drug dealer before turning himself in to the police for killing someone.

	Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder
	As teenagers Brooklyn and Nico work to help each other recover from the deaths of Brooklyn's boyfriend--Nico's brother Lucca--and their friend Gabe, the two begin to rediscover their passion for life, and a newly blossoming passion for one another.

	Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John
	Eighteen-year-old Piper becomes the manager for her classmates' popular rock band, called Dumb, giving her the chance to prove her capabilities to her parents and others, if only she can get the band members to get along.

	Matched by Ally Condie
	All her life, Cassia has never had a choice. The Society dictates everything: when and how to play, where to work, where to live, what to eat and wear, when to die, and most importantly to Cassia as she turns 17, who to marry. When she is Matched with her best friend Xander, things couldn't be more perfect. But why did her neighbor Ky's face show up on her match disk as well?

	Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
	An angry, grieving seventeen-year-old musician facing expulsion from her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French revolution by a young actress attempting to help a tortured, imprisoned little boy--Louis Charles, the lost king of France.

	Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
	In a post-apocalyptic world where fences and border patrols guard the few people left from the zombies that have overtaken civilization, fifteen-year-old Benny Imura is finally convinced that he must follow in his older brother's footsteps and become a bounty hunter.

	Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles
	Living on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus with his older brother Alex, a college student and ex-gang member, high school senior Carlos is not ready to give up his wild ways until he meets a shy classmate named Kiara and becomes unwillingly involved in a drug ring.

	Sea by Heidi Kling
	Despite recurring nightmares about her mother's death and her own fear of flying, fifteen-year-old Sienna accepts her father's birthday gift to fly to Indonesia with his team of disaster relief workers to help victims of a recent tsunami, never suspecting that this experience will change her life forever.

	Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
	In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

	Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick


	Split by Swati Avasthi
	A teenaged boy thrown out of his house by his abusive father goes to live with his older brother, who ran away from home years ago to escape the abuse.

	The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
	In the months after her sister dies, seventeen-year-old Lennie falls into a love triangle and discovers the strength to follow her dream of becoming a musician.
^^Top of Page


2011 - 2012 Award Winners
	1st Place: Hate List by Jennifer Brown
	Sixteen-year-old Valerie, whose boyfriend Nick committed a school shooting at the end of their junior year, struggles to cope with integrating herself back into high school life, unsure herself whether she was a hero or a villain.

	2nd Place: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
	In all the years she has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house, Grace has been particularly drawn to an unusual yellow-eyed wolf who, in his turn, has been watching her with increasing intensity.

	3rd Place: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
	While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weighs whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.

^^Top of Page

2010 - 2011 Award Winners
	1st Place: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
	In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

	2nd Place: Graceling by Kristin Cashore
	In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

	3rd Place: Wake by Lisa McMann
	Ever since she was eight years old, high school student Janie Hannagan has been uncontrollably drawn into other people's dreams, but it is not until she befriends an elderly nursing home patient and becomes involved with an enigmatic fellow-student that she discovers her true power.

^^Top of Page

2009 - 2010 Award Winners
	1st Place: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
	When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.

	2nd Place: Unwind by Neal Shusterman
	In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.

	3rd Place: Beastly by Alex Flinn
	A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" from the point of view of the Beast, a vain Manhattan private school student who is turned into a monster and must find true love before he can return to his human form.
^^Top of Page

2008 - 2009 Award Winners
1st Place: 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.

2nd Place: 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.

3rd Place: 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.

2007 - 2008 Award Winners
1st Place 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.

2nd Place Maximum Ride: The Angle 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.

3rd Place Uglies by Scott Westerfield
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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
^^Top of Page