Stacy Gregg's Nine Girls won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award at the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults ceremony in Wellington. She also took the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. The category winners each receive NZ$7,500 (about US$4,620), excepting the NZ$2,500 (about $1,540) first book award.
Convenor of judges Maia Bennett said, "After careful deliberation, both judging panels came to a unanimous decision on a book that not only exemplifies the highest standards, but that we believe will make a lasting contribution to Aotearoa's national literature for children and young adults; and as such, deserves the accolade of supreme winner." The other category winners were:
Picture Book: Paku Manu Ariki Whakatakapōkai by Michaela Keeble and Kerehi Grace, illustrated by Tokerau Brown
YA Fiction: Catch a Falling Star by Eileen Merriman
Elsie Locke Award for Nonfiction: Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan to Rewild Every City on Earth by Steve Mushin
Russell Clark Award for Illustration: Gavin Bishop for Patu: The New Zealand Wars
Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award: Nani Jo me ngā Mokopuna Porohīanga by Moira Wairama, illustrated by Margaret Tolland.
NZSA Best First Book Award: Tsunami by Ned Wenlock