Publications

Reading Circle Program

20010-11 Gateway Readers Award Nominees (Grades 9-12)

After, by Amy Efaw. Viking Juvenile, ©2009. In complete denial that she is pregnant, straight-A student and star athlete Devon Davenport leaves her baby in the trash to die, and after the baby is discovered, Devon is accused of attempted murder.

The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams. St. Martin’s Griffin, ©2009. In a polygamous cult in the desert, Kyra, not yet 14, sees being chosen to be the seventh wife of her uncle as just punishment for having read books and kissed a boy, in violation of Prophet Childs’ teachings, and is torn between facing her fate and running away from all that she knows and loves. Fat Cat, by Robin Brande. Knopf Books for Young Readers, ©2009. Overweight teenage Catherine embarks on a high school science project in which she must emulate the ways of hominims, the earliest ancestors of human beings, by eating an all-natural diet and foregoing technology.

Flash Burnout, by L. K. Madigan. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. © 2009. When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth-addicted mom.

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have, by Allen Zadoff. EgmontUSA, © 2009. Fifteen-year-old Andrew Zansky, the second fattest student at his high school, joins the varsity football team to get the attention of a new girl on whom he has a crush.

Hate List. Little, by Jennifer Brown. Brown Books for Young Readers, ©2009. 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.

Hold Still, by Nina LaCour. Dutton Juvenile, ©2009. Caitlin wrestles with her feelings of devastation and helplessness after her friend commits suicide and turns to her family and friends for help while using Ingrid’s journal to heal.

If I Grow Up, by Todd Strasser. Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, ©2009. Growing up in the inner-city projects, DeShawn is reluctantly forced into the gang world by circumstances beyond his control.

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman. Speak, ©2009. While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, 17-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weighs whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.

King of the Screwups, by K.L. Going. Graphia, © 2009. After getting in trouble yet again, popular high school senior Liam, who never seems to live up to his wealthy father’s expectations, is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay “glamrocker” uncle.

The Morgue and Me, by John C. Ford. Viking Juvenile, ©2009. Eighteen-year-old Christopher, who plans to be a spy, learns of a murder cover-up through his summer job as a morgue assistant and teams up with Tina, a gorgeous newspaper reporter, to investigate, despite great danger. Muchacho, by Louanne Johnson. Knopf Books for Young Readers, ©2009. Living in a neighborhood of drug dealers and gangs in New Mexico, high school junior Eddie Corazon, a juvenile delinquent-in-training, falls in love with a girl who inspires him to rethink his life and his choices.

Purple Heart, by Patricia McCormick. Balzer + Bray, ©2009. While recuperating in a Baghdad hospital from a traumatic brain injury sustained during the Iraq War, 18-year-old soldier Matt Duffy struggles to recall what happened to him and how it relates to his 10-year-old friend, Ali.

Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater. Scholastic, ©2009. 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.

We Were Here, by Matt de la Pena. Delacorte Books for Young Readers, ©2009. Haunted by the event that sentences him to time in a group home, Miguel breaks out with two unlikely companions and together they begin their journey down the California coast hoping to get to Mexico and a new life.