The Gateway Readers Award

THE GATEWAY READERS AWARD

2009 - 2010 Award Nominees

2008-2009 Award 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.

2009 - 2010 Gateway Readers Award Nominees
	Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
	After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

	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.

	Beauty Shop for Rent -- : Fully Equipped, Inquire Within by Laura Bowers
	Raised by a great-grandmother and a bunch of beauty shop buddies, fourteen-year-old Abbey resolves to overcome her unhappy childhood and disillusionment with the mother who deserted her.

	Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker
	Billie Standish has pretty much no one. Her parents are too caught up in their own lives, and the only two girls in town her age want nothing to do with her. When it looks like a nearby levee might break, and Billie's elderly neighbor, Miss Lydia, is the only other person besides her family to stick around, a friendship is born out of circumstance. What happens during that time, in that empty town, is a tragedy that Billie can't bear alone. Can the love of one woman nearing the end of her life save the life of a young woman just at the beginning of living hers?

	Deadline by Chris Crutcher
	Given the medical diagnosis of one year to live, high school senior Ben Wolf decides to fulfill his greatest fantasies, ponders his life's purpose and legacy, and converses through dreams with a spiritual guide known as "Hey-Soos."

	Tallgrass Sandra Dallas
	During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers. This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things. Part thriller, part historical novel,Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest--and best--parts of the human heart.

	November Blues by Sharon Draper
	This stunning sequel to the Coretta Scott King Honor Book "The Battle of Jericho" has energy, pathos, and drama, and doesnt shrink from telling kids how it is to be 16 years old and pregnant.

	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.

	Right Behind You by Gail Giles
	When he was nine, Kip set another child on fire. Now, after years in a juvenile ward, he is ready for a fresh start. But the ghosts of his past soon demand justice, and he must reveal his painful secret. How can Kip tell anyone that he really is--or was--a murderer?

	Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
	Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and the Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.

	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.

	Peak by Roland Smith
	A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.

	First Shot by Walter Sorrells
	As David enters his senior year of high school, a family secret emerges that could solve the mystery of why his mother was murdered two years ago.

	Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
	After ignoring several warnings to stop dating his teacher, Garrett is sent to Lake Harmony, a boot camp that uses unorthodox and brutal methods to train students to obey their parents.

	Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin
	After a nasty fall, Naomi realizes that she has no memory of the last four years and finds herself reassessing every aspect of her life.
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2008 - 2009 Gateway Readers Award Nominees
	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	Born to Rock Gordon Korman
	High school senior Leo Caraway, a conservative Republican, learns that his biological father is a punk rock legend.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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.

	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 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.
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