 The Gateway Readers Award is an annual award for authors of recently published books chosen by high school students in Missouri. Missouri students in grades nine through twelve are eligible to vote for their favorite book if they have read at least THREE of the titles on the following list.
2010-2011 Gateway Reader Award Nominees
 Bodeen, S.A. The Compound. After his parents, two sisters, and he have spent six years in a vast underground compound built by his wealthy father to protect them from a nuclear holocaust, fifteen-year-old Eli, whose twin brother and grandmother were left behind, discovers that his father has perpetrated a monstrous hoax on them all.
 Bradbury, Jennifer. Shift. Upon graduating from high school, friends Chris and Winston set off on a cross-country bike trip from West Virginia to California. Their one final adventure turns sour when an argument sends the pair in different directions. Chris returns home at the end of the summer, but Win is missing. Chris becomes a prime suspect when an FBI agent arrives at his college dorm with questions about their trek. Details about the people, places and fun along the friends' journey add depth to the story, and readers will be anxious to find out what really happened to Win.
 Cashore, Kristin. Graceling. Lady Katsa is a girl in her late teens who is a Graceling, a being with a special Grace for dancing, swimming or, in Katsa's case, killing. Her particular Grace makes Katsa valuable to the king, who manipulates her to kill his enemies. Struggling with guilt over her acts, Katsa forms a secret council to promote justice. When she meets Prince Po, whose Grace matches her own, she learns more about her Grace and herself.
 Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. In this first book of a trilogy, the United States -- wracked with natural and man-made disasters - has been replaced by "Panem," a country comprised of the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year a boy and a girl from each district are chosen by lottery to participate in a violent reality TV show called The Hunger Games. The rules are simple -- there are no rules. Competitors battle to the death. When her younger sister is chosen, 16-year-old Katniss volunteers to take her place in the games alongside her male counterpart, Peeta. The two teens have no fighting experience yet will face players who have trained their entire lives for these games, and the stakes couldn't be higher.
 Dessen, Sarah. Lock & Key. When Ruby's mother abandons her, she is forced to live with her sister, Cora, whom she has not spoken to for a decade. Ruby, 17, attempts to run away the first night, but then decides to wait until she is 18 and can live on her own. Ruby struggles with the transition from a farmhouse to a gated community, where her new school is full of rich kids. Eventually, she makes friends, enjoys a relationship with the next-door neighbor, Nate, and realizes her sister is more loyal than her mother made it seem.
Dunlap, Susanne. The Musician's Daughter. In eighteenth-century Vienna, Austria, fifteen-year-old Theresa seeks a way to help her mother and brother financially while investigating the murder of her father, a renowned violinist in Haydn's orchestra at the court of Prince Esterhazy, after his body is found near a gypsy camp.
 Green, John. Paper Towns. One month before graduating from his Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen's neighbor and classmate -- the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman -- takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. Suicide comes to mind, but when he and his friends begin finding clues about Margo's whereabouts, his mission to find her reveals that perhaps he never really knew who Margo was after all.
 Katcher, Brian. Playing with Matches. While trying to find a girl who will date him, Missouri high school junior Leon Sanders befriends a lonely, disfigured female classmate.
 Korman, Gordon. The Juvie Three. Teenagers Gecko, Arjay and Terence are given a second chance at life when Douglas Healy selects them to live with him in a New York group home. Arjay and Gecko are determined to not do anything to put them back in jail, but arrogant Terence is not convinced of this new lifestyle. When Terence causes an accident that knocks Healy unconscious and results in amnesia, the three boys create a plan to cover for Healy in hopes he will regain his memory and remember his promise to take them in. Humor and sadness blend together in each boy's distinct voice and their situations
 Lockhart, E. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. A nottie-turned-hottie, Alabaster Prep sophomore Frances "Frankie" Landau-Banks discovers that her handsome, popular boyfriend Matthew belongs to the same all-male secret society her father once belonged to -- the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. Inspired by a class paper, Frankie assumes a fake online identity in order to become a member and secretly initiates a series of mischievous deeds to gain their approval. Proving she has both beauty and brains, Frankie realizes her antics are not appreciated by all and learns a fast lesson about love and loyalty.
 McMann, Lisa. Wake. 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.
 Rhodes-Courter, Ashley. Three Little Words. A memoir of a young woman who spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes. Despite the instability of her life and the abuse of one foster family, she finds the courage to succeed.
 Scott, Elizabeth. Stealing Heaven. Dani is forced to decide between her nomadic life with her mother as a traveling thief and the life she has always wanted when they reach the town of Heaven, a place where good people reside and simple pleasures are appreciated.
 Yoo, Paula. Good Enough. HarperCollins Publishers. A Korean American teenager tries to please her parents by getting into an Ivy League college, but a new guy in school and her love of the violin tempt her in new directions.
 Zarr, Sara. Sweethearts. Little, Brown & Company. Trying to forget most of her traumatic past, 17-year-old Jennifer transforms herself from the unpopular, fat girl into the beautiful and popular Jenna. When her childhood friend Cameron -- whom she believed died eight years ago -- unexpectedly returns, Jenna is confronted with memories both good and bad, and is forced to deal with the reality of their lives and shared past. Through flashbacks, readers gain an understanding of the social and emotional turmoil the teens faced as children and how those events shaped their current lives.
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