Nutmeg Winners - Middle School (Grades 7-8)

All the past and present winners of the Nutmeg Book Award, voted on by Connecticut's children. These are for the Intermediate age group, which includes grades 7 to 8. Winners from 2006-2025.
 

Showing 1 - 20 of 21  There are a total of 21 valid entries on the list.

1. Counting by 7s

Book cover for "Counting by 7s"
Star rating for Counting by 7s
Author:
Sloan, Holly Goldberg, 1958-
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
2016 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
Twelve-year-old genius and outsider Willow Chance must figure out how to connect with other people and find a surrogate family for herself after her parents are killed in a car accident.

2. Divergent

Book cover for "Divergent"
Star rating for Divergent
Author:
Roth, Veronica
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Notes:
2014 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, Hoopla eBook, Large Print, Media Player, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Beatrice Prior's society is divided into five factions--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself. But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she's determined to keep hidden, because in this world, what makes you different...

3. Dress coded

Book cover for "Dress coded"
Star rating for Dress coded
Author:
Firestone, Carrie
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2024 Winner
Formats:
Book, Media Player, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
"An eighth grader starts a podcast to protest the unfair dress code enforcement at her middle school and sparks a rebellion."-- Molly Frost is FED UP because Olivia was yelled at for wearing a tank top. Because Liza got dress coded and Molly didn't, even though they were wearing the exact same outfit. Because when Jessica was pulled over by the principal and missed a math quiz, her teacher gave her a F. Because it's impossible to find shorts that...

4. Elsewhere

Book cover for "Elsewhere"
Star rating for Elsewhere
Author:
Zevin, Gabrielle
Notes:
2009 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
After fifteen-year-old Liz Hall is hit by a taxi and killed, she finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to "live."

5. Game changer

Book cover for "Game changer"
Star rating for Game changer
Author:
Greenwald, Tommy, 1962-
Notes:
2023 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, Hoopla eBook
Description:
While thirteen-year-old Teddy fights for his life after a football injury at training camp, his friends and family gather to support him and discuss events leading to his coma. Told through dialogue, text messages, newspaper articles, transcripts, an online forum, and Teddy's inner thoughts.

6. Ghost

Book cover for "Ghost"
Star rating for Ghost
Author:
Reynolds, Jason
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Notes:
2019 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
"Ghost, a naturally talented runner and troublemaker, is recruited for an elite middle school track team. He must stay on track, literally and figuratively, to reach his full potential"--

7. Hoot

Book cover for "Hoot"
Star rating for Hoot
Author:
Hiaasen, Carl
Average Rating:
2 stars
Notes:
2006 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Large Print, Media Player, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

8. The Hunger Games

Book cover for "The Hunger Games"
Star rating for The Hunger Games
Author:
Collins, Suzanne
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Notes:
2012 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eBook, Large Print, Media Player, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"The Hunger Games as you've never seen it before--in a remarkable illustrated edition. Even at the age of sixteen, Katniss Everdeen knows it takes hard work, keen observation, and inner fortitude to survive in the world. Her home, District 12, is under the merciless rule of the Capitol, continually forced to pay after losing a long-ago civil war in the nation of Panem. One of the ways the Capitol keeps control is its annual Hunger Games, a televised...

9. Insignificant events in the life of a cactus

Book cover for "Insignificant events in the life of a cactus"
Star rating for Insignificant events in the life of a cactus
Author:
Bowling, Dusti
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2022
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
New friends and a mystery help Aven, thirteen, adjust to middle school and life at a dying western theme park in a new state, where her being born armless presents many challenges.

10. The iron trial

Book cover for "The iron trial"
Star rating for The iron trial
Author:
Black, Holly
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Notes:
2017 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
Warned away from magic all of his life, Callum endeavors to fail the trials that would admit him to the Magisterium only to be drawn into its ranks against his will and forced to confront dark elements from his past.

11. Life as we knew it

Book cover for "Life as we knew it"
Star rating for Life as we knew it
Author:
Pfeffer, Susan Beth, 1948-
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
2010 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eBook, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Through journal entries, sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

12. The lightning thief

Book cover for "The lightning thief"
Star rating for The lightning thief
Author:
Riordan, Rick
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Notes:
2008 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eBook, Large Print, Media Player, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse -- Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for...

13. New kid

Book cover for "New kid"
Star rating for New kid
Author:
Craft, Jerry
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Notes:
2021 Winner
Formats:
Graphic Novel, Hoopla eComic
Description:
Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft. Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known...

14. New Kid

Book cover for "New Kid"
Star rating for New Kid
Author:
Craft, Jerry
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2021 Winner
Formats:
CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, Media Player, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:

2020 Audie Awards® Finalist—Middle Grade

Winner of the Newbery Medal, Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature, and an Audie Award finalist!

An original full-cast audio adaptation of the graphic novel from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft, performed by the author with Jesus Del Orden, Nile Bullock, Robin Miles,

...

15. Orbiting Jupiter

Book cover for "Orbiting Jupiter"
Star rating for Orbiting Jupiter
Author:
Schmidt, Gary D.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2018 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, Hoopla eBook, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
"Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he'll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice." --

16. Posted

Book cover for "Posted"
Star rating for Posted
Author:
Anderson, John David, 1975-
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2020 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook, Hoopla eBook, OverDrive eAudiobook
Description:
In middle school, words aren't just words. They can be weapons. They can be gifts. The right words can win you friends or make you enemies. They can come back to haunt you. Sometimes they can change things forever. When cell phones are banned at Branton Middle School, Frost and his friends Deedee, Wolf, and Bench come up with a new way to communicate: leaving sticky notes for each other all around the school. It catches on, and soon all the kids in...

17. The raft

Book cover for "The raft"
Star rating for The raft
Author:
Bodeen, S. A. (Stephanie A.), 1965-
Notes:
2015 Winner
Choose a Format
On Shelf
Guilford YA Fiction
YA BODEEN
Description:
Robie lives with her family on the Midway Atoll, a group of islands in the Pacific. After visiting her aunt on Hawaii, she catches a return cargo flight at the last minute. The plane hits nasty weather and goes down. Max, the only other survivor pulls her onto a raft and the real terror begins. How long can they survive?

18. Rot & ruin

Book cover for "Rot & ruin"
Star rating for Rot & ruin
Author:
Maberry, Jonathan
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
2013 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, Hoopla eAudiobook
Description:
In a post-apocalyptic world where fences and border patrols guard the few people left from the zombies that have overtaken civilization, fifteen-year-old Benny Imura is finally convinced that he must follow in his older brother's footsteps and become a bounty hunter.

19. Starfish

Book cover for "Starfish"
Star rating for Starfish
Author:
Fipps, Lisa
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2025 Winner
Formats:
Book, Large Print, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook, Readalong
Description:
Bullied and shamed her whole life for being fat, twelve-year-old Ellie finally gains the confidence to stand up for herself, with the help of some wonderful new allies.--

20. Unwind

Book cover for "Unwind"
Star rating for Unwind
Author:
Shusterman, Neal
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2011 Winner
Formats:
Book, CD Audiobook, OverDrive eAudiobook, OverDrive eBook
Description:
In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.