Students in grades 3-12 who read at least 4 titles from their respective list will be eligible to take part in the Missouri voting in March and be treated to a pizza at the Readers' Award Celebration at the end of the year!

Show Me Award Books (Grades 1-3)

2025-2026 Winners:

1st Place - The Kitten Story, 11,859 votes
2nd Place - The Mighty McKracken, 9,625 votes
3rd Place - The Three Little Guinea Pigs, 8,254 votes

2026-2027 Nominees:

Title	Author	Illustrator
All for Books	Hayley Rocco	John Rocco
Apple Pie Tired	Beth Charles	Hannah Brinson
The Boy Who Found His Voice	Tyler Gordon	Tyler Gordon
Campingland	Ame Dyckman	James Burks
Itty Bitty Betty Blob	Constance Lombardo	Micah Player
A Letter to My Best Friend	Yangsook Choi	Yangsook Choi
The Little Red Chair	Cathy Stefanec Ogren	Alexandra Thompson
Porcupine Had a Fuzzy Sweater	Jody Jensen Shaffer	Angela Edmonds
Sinclair, the Velicoraptor Who Thought He was a Chicken	Douglas Rees	Galia Bernstein
The Yellow Bus	Loren Long	Loren Long

Mark Twain Award Books (Grades 4-6)

2025-2026 Winners:

1st Place – How to Stay Invisible, 1,025 votes

2nd Place – The Cursed Moon, 963 votes

3rd Place – Four Eyes, 872 votes

2026-2027 Nominees:

Title	Author
And Then, Boom!	Lisa Fipps
Carter Avery's Tricky Fourth-Grade Year	Rob Buyea
Heroes	Alan Gratz
Light and Air	Mindy Nichols Wendell
The Night Librarian	Christopher Lincoln
The Night War	Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
On a Wing and a Tear	Cynthia Leitich Smith
Popcorn	Rob Harrell
The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night	Steven Banbury
A Royal Conundrum	Lisa Yee
The Sherlock Society	James Ponti
Slugfest	Gordon Korman

Truman Award Books (Grades 6-8)

2025-2026 Winners:

1st Place – The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn, 172 votes

2nd Place – Iceberg, 167 votes

3rd Place – If Found Us, 153 votes

2026-2027 Nominees:

Title	Author
The Bletchley Riddle	Ruta Sepetys & Steve Sheinkin
Bye Forever, I Guess	Jodi Meadows
The Last Dragon on Mars	Scott Reintgen
The Legend of the Last Library	Frank L. Cole
The Liars Society	Alyson Gerber
Medusa	Katherine Marsh
Not If You Break Up with Me First	G.F. Miller
Not Nothing	Gayle Forman
The Secret Dead Club	Karen Strong
Shadowed	Carl Deuker
Uprising	Jennifer Nielsen
Westfallen	Ann & Ben Brashares

2025-2026 Winners:

1st Place – Divine Rivals, 240 votes

2nd Place – Betting on You, 230 votes

3rd Place – That's Not My Name, 222 votes

2026-2027 Nominees:

Title	Author
Another First Chance	Robbie Couch
Darkly	Marisha Pessl
Death at Morning House	Maureen Johnson
Diet Soda Club	Chaz Hayden
Dungeons and Drama	Kristy Boyce
The Glass Girl	Kathleen Glasgow
The Merciless King of Moore High	Lily Sparks
Looking for Smoke	K.A. Cobell
Stay Dead	April Henry
This Book Won't Burn	Samira Ahmed
Under This Red Rock	Mindy McGinness
Youth Group	Jordan Morris

Missouri Readers' Awards