Each year, Missouri schoolchildren in grades 4-6 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.
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Twelve-year-old Ava finds an old pencil in her family's junk drawer and discovers, during a math test, that it will answer factual questions, so she and her best friend Sophie have a great time--and Ava grows in self-confidence--until the pencil reveals a truth about her family that Ava would rather not know.
Pat O'Toole has always idolized his older brother, Coop, right up until the day Coop ran away from their home just outside Washington, D.C. -- now a year later he has received a package containing a digital voice recorder and a cryptic message from his brother, which will lead Pat on a strange and dangerous journey to the mysterious Community living beneath the streets of New York.
Just after twelve-year-old Emily and her family move to San Francisco, she teams up with new friend James to follow clues in an odd book they find, hoping to figure out its secrets before the men who attacked Emily's hero, publisher Garrison Griswold, solve the mystery or come after the friends.
Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica--and decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same thread of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica.
Ally's greatest fear is that everyone will find out she is as dumb as they think she is because she still doesn't know how to read.
While under house arrest for one year for stealing a wallet, young Timothy keeps free-verse notes on his life in a court-ordered journal as he deals with having a sick brother and tries to stay out of trouble.
Overweight and non-athletic, twelve-year-old Hale may have been born and raised to be a spy for the Sub Rosa Society but it seems he is unlikely to become a Field Agent until his parents are captured by the evil League and Hale sets out on a solo mission to save them.
Sixth grade is supposed to be the year that Jack Callahan would lead his team to a record-shattering season and the Little League World Series, but after the death of his brother he loses interest in baseball and only Cassie, star of the girls' softball team, seems to understand.
A young disabled girl and her brother are evacuated from London to the English countryside during World War II, where they find life to be much sweeter away from their abusive mother.
When the eighth grade civics class of Miami's Culver Middle School goes on a trip to Washington, D.C., Wyatt Palmer finds himself in deep trouble before the plane even lands because his best friend Matt's decided the men sitting behind them are terrorists--and it's up to the boys to stop them.
A witch called Old Auntie is lurking near Dan's family's new home. He doesn't believe in her at first, but is forced to accept that she is real and take action when his little sister, Erica, is 'took' to become Auntie's slave for the next fifty years.
When Webster the dog arrives at Green Meadows Farm he has already been adopted, mistreated, and given away three times and is done with people, but the other animals of the shelter will not let him give up on the possibility of a special family.