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 - 18 of 18  There are a total of 21 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Counting by 7s"
Star rating for Counting by 7s
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
2016 Winner
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.
Book cover for "Divergent"
Star rating for Divergent
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Notes:
2014 Winner
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...
Book cover for "Dress coded"
Star rating for Dress coded
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2024 Winner
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...
Book cover for "Elsewhere"
Star rating for Elsewhere
Notes:
2009 Winner
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."
Book cover for "Game changer"
Star rating for Game changer
Notes:
2023 Winner
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
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Notes:
2019 Winner
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
Average Rating:
2 stars
Notes:
2006 Winner
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.
Book cover for "The Hunger Games"
Star rating for The Hunger Games
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Notes:
2012 Winner
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...
Book cover for "Insignificant events in the life of a cactus"
Star rating for Insignificant events in the life of a cactus
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2022
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.
Book cover for "The iron trial"
Star rating for The iron trial
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Notes:
2017 Winner
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.
Book cover for "Life as we knew it"
Star rating for Life as we knew it
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
2010 Winner
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.
Book cover for "The lightning thief"
Star rating for The lightning thief
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Notes:
2008 Winner
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:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2021 Winner
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,

...
Book cover for "Orbiting Jupiter"
Star rating for Orbiting Jupiter
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2018 Winner
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." --

15. Posted

Book cover for "Posted"
Star rating for Posted
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2020 Winner
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...
Book cover for "Rot & ruin"
Star rating for Rot & ruin
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
2013 Winner
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.
Book cover for "Starfish"
Star rating for Starfish
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2025 Winner
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.--

18. Unwind

Book cover for "Unwind"
Star rating for Unwind
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
2011 Winner
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.