The Dogwood Readers Award recognizes quality nonfiction books for school-age youth. Titles are broken down into four grade ranges: K-2; 3-5; 6-8; and 9-12. Below is a complete listing of award finalists for middle school and high school readers.
This award was founded just last year by the Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL). The award selection committee is comprised of nine librarians who work in K-12 school districts throughout the state of Missouri. You can offer your suggestions for consideration at the Dogwood Readers Award website.
Dogwood Titles for Grades 6-8
- “On the Horizon” by Lois Lowry
- “Torpedoed: The True Story of the World War II Sinking of ‘The Children’s Ship’” by Deborah Heiligman
- “1919: The Year That Changed America” by Martin W. Sandler
- “Monstrous: The Lore, Gore and Science Behind Your Favorite Monsters” by Carlyn Beccia
- “The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in our Food and Drugs” by Gail Jarrow
- “This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality” by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy
- “Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation” by Candy J. Cooper
- “Monument Maker: Daniel Chester French and the Lincoln Memorial” by Linda Booth Sweeney
- “Enemy Child: The Story of Norman Mineta, a Boy Imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp During World War II” by Andrea Warren
- “Blood and Germs: The Civil War Battle Against Wounds and Disease” by Gail Jarrow
- “Born to Fly: The First Women’s Air Race Across America” by Steve Sheinkin
- “Chance: Escape from the Holocaust” by Uri Shulevitz
- “Disaster Strikes!: The Most Dangerous Space Missions of All Time” by Jeffrey Kluger
- “Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918” by Don Brown
- “Lifting as we Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box” by Evette Dionne
- “Suffragette: The Battle for Equality” by David Roberts
- “Thank You For Coming To My Ted Talk” by Chris Anderson
- “The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa’s Last Great Herds” by Sy Montgomery
- “You Call This Democracy? How to Fix Our Government and Deliver Power to the People” by Elizabeth Rusch
- “Rising Water : The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue” by Marc Aronson
Dogwood Titles for Grades 9-12
- “Dragon Hoops” by Gene Luen Yang
- “We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World” by Malala Yousafzai with Liz Welch
- “The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh” by Candace Fleming Schwartz
- “Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir” by Nikki Grimes
- “The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War and Survival” by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess with Laura L. Sullivan
- “Soaring Earth” by Margarita Engle
- “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
- “Accused!: The Trials of the Scottsboro Boys: Lies, Prejudice, and the 14th Amendment” by Larry Dane Brimner
- “Shout” by Laurie Halse Anderson
- “Warhead: The True Story of One Teen Who Almost Saved the World” by Jeff Henigson
- “They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei, Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott
- “Free to Be Me” by Dom & Ink
- “Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
- “We Are Here to Stay” by Susan Kuklin
- “Dancing at the Pity Party” by Tyler Feder
- “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi
- “I Am the Night Sky and Other Reflections by Muslim American Youth” by Next Wave Muslim Initiative Writers
- “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for Young People” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese Beacon
- “I Was Their American Dream” by Malaka Gharib
- “Fly Like a Girl” by Mary Jennings Hegar
