Nutmeg Book Award Announces 2014 Winners!

The Nutmeg Steering Committee is excited to announce the 2014 Nutmeg Book Award Winners!

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper is the winner of the Intermediate Award
Divergent by Veronica Roth is the winner of the Teen Award
Paper Towns by John Green is the winner of the first ever High School Nutmeg Book Award

Almost 20,000 students voted from across the state of Connecticut. For the first year of the High School Award, there was a strong showing of 22 schools/libraries participating in the voting with 420 votes cast. Slightly over a quarter of the votes, 112, were for the winning title Paper Towns. The winner for the Teen Award, Divergent, received an overwhelmingly majority of the votes with 4,230 of the 7,881 total votes. As usual, the votes for the Intermediate Book Award were a little more spread out but still a clear winner for Out of My Mind.  

The Nutmeg Book Award encourages children to read quality literature and to choose their favorite from a list of ten nominated titles.  Jointly sponsored by the Connecticut Library Association (CLA) and the Connecticut Association of School Librarians (CASL), the Nutmeg Committee is comprised of teen readers, children's librarians and school librarians who are members of our sponsoring organizations. 2014 was the first year the High School level was added and for the 2015 award, there is the addition of the Elementary Award with a selection of 15 nominees for students in grades 2-4.

Our thanks go to all of the schools and libraries and of course the students who participated in this year's voting!

Intermediate Book Award
Total votes:  17,349

5,689  Out of My Mind
3,815  The Candymakers
2,106  Closed for the Season
1,499  Wildfire Run
944     Inside Out and Back Again
933     Saving Armpit
776     The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman
620     Wild Girl
594     The Great Wall of Lucy Wu
373     Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel

Teen Book Award
Total votes: 7881

4,230  Divergent
982     Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25
455     Mindblind
417     The Lions of Little Rock
414     Now is the Time for Running
313     Page by Paige
299     City of Orphans
290     I’ll Be There
249     Okay for Now
232     Scorpio Races

High School Award
Total votes: 420

112     Paper Towns
92        Legend
49        Daughter of Smoke and Bone
49        Wintergirls
41        The Night Circus
24        Kings of Colorado
19        Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
16        Everybody Sees the Ants
10        Shine
8          Watch That Ends the Night

Pamela Dear & Kristi Sadowski
2014 Nutmeg Steering Committee Co-Chairpersons

Lisa Garofalo

School Librarian

Ellington Middle School & Crystal Lake School

Ellington, CT

lgarofalo@ellingtonschools.net

Secretary, Ellington Education Association

Secretary, Nutmeg Book Award Steering Committee