When I was in college, I decided to go to a meeting of the local
Scrabble Club. Pretty much since I could read, I’ve been playing
Scrabble with friends and relatives, and more often than not, I emerge
victorious from these matches. It was a little disconcerting, then, to
go up against players who were able to so thoroughly trounce me without
breaking a sweat. I only attended one meeting, and while it was partly
because the group met way across town and getting there wasn’t very
convenient, there were other reasons just as strong keeping me away. I
was intimidated. And I didn’t like going from Scrabble champ to Scrabble
chump.
In Susin Nielsen’s Word Nerd, 12-year-old Ambrose
has the same initial reaction to Scrabble Club. He takes the initiative
to go, cornering his neighbor, ex-con Cosmo, into driving him there,
but he soon discovers that all that practice beating his mom hasn’t
served him quite as well as he expected. He’s still a novice. But
Ambrose keeps going to the club, partly because he’s bored out of his
mind at home, where he spends the vast majority of his time, and partly
because Cosmo has a major crush on club president Amanda and is now the
one pushing for them to return.
I checked Word Nerd out of the library after reading Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom
by the same author. It took me about halfway through the book to
realize that the two are connected beyond just the author and the
Vancouver setting. Amanda and Cosmo, while not as prominent in that book
as this, still have a fairly significant role in Dear George Clooney, especially Amanda. Mostly, though, these are two entirely distinct stories.
When
I started reading this one, I hoped that I might like the narrator
better this time around. Instead of a mean-spirited girl with divorced
parents and little sisters, we have a geeky boy with a widowed mom and
no siblings. In some ways I do like Ambrose better; he’s not nearly so
angsty, and of course I can relate to his fondness for Scrabble. But
he’s also a twerp who, as Cosmo says as one point, doesn’t have a
filter. He just says whatever pops into his head, and since we’re
spending an entire book in his head, sometimes we’re getting stuff we’d
really rather not. Or at least that was my experience.
Though
the publisher’s recommendation suggests this for ages 9 and up, I
probably wouldn’t go any younger than 12, and I’d advise parents to leaf
through it first, especially if girls are going to be reading. Puberty
is a subject that seems to come up in quite a few books involving girls
in their early teens, but I can’t say I’ve read a lot that delve into
the male experience in much detail. Ambrose doesn’t shy away from
describing his changing body and his embarrassing reactions to
especially buxom women. Frankly, I don’t think this adds much to the
book, except perhaps to emphasize that he could really use an older guy
to confide in about such topics. Nielsen also includes a fair bit of
profanity, presumably to give a greater feeling of realism. That is to
say, she includes censored profanity, just the first letter and a dash,
so it’s rather like watching an R-rated movie on TBS. Additionally, she
broaches mature topics like drug use, theft and the death of a family
member.
Ambrose and his mom are a team. Since his father died 12
years earlier, it’s been the two of them against the world, and Ambrose
adores her. However, he hates the fact that they move frequently, never
giving him the chance to really connect with anyone else, which is a
difficult enough prospect already since he’s so socially awkward.
Vancouver seems like it could be the loneliest place yet, since a trio
of bullies, in a move reminding me very much of a classic episode of Freaks and Geeks,
decide it would be hilarious to put his allergy to the test by sticking
a peanut in his sandwich. Ambrose nearly dies, and his mother enrolls
him in cyber-school. He’s not getting picked on, but the days stretch
endlessly. His only diversion comes in the form of Mrs. Economopoulos,
the warm-hearted Greek landlady who lives upstairs. She and her husband
invite him over for delicious home-cooked meals and treat him kindly,
but even that friendship is threatened when their 25-year-old son Cosmo
returns home from jail.
Ambrose’s mother is deeply suspicious of
Cosmo from the start, while Ambrose is intrigued. After a few
surreptitious encounters, he latches onto Cosmo, not only going to
Scrabble Club with him but learning self-defense from him and joining
him on outings with Amanda. He continues to hide their friendship from
his mother, afraid that she will become fearful and decide to move
again, leaving him back at square one. This fear only increases once he
begins to make friends in Scrabble Club as well. Ambrose has never had
friends, and now that he does, he wants to keep them, even if they are
unconventional in terms of age.
I mostly enjoyed Word Nerd.
Parts of it are quite funny, and I like the gradual development of
Ambrose and Cosmo’s friendship, which benefits them both. I also like
that each chapter begins with a jumble of letters, followed by a series
of words that can be made from those letters, followed by the chapter
title proper. It’s a fun way of keeping Scrabble a more organic part of
the book. Nielsen also includes several tips and tricks that Scrabble
players use and warns of the dangers of becoming too caught up in the
game, to the exclusion of all else. I think that anybody who enjoys
playing Scrabble would find these aspects of the book interesting.
Ultimately, I’m not sure whether I prefer Word Nerd or Dear George Clooney.
Both novels feature narrators who are startlingly worldly for their
ages, and as a result, much of the content isn’t very appropriate for
young readers. However, both books involve sympathetic characters in
fractured families, and it’s touching to see their understanding of
family expand. With the Scrabble connection, I might also recommend this
to older readers who are interested in immersing themselves in
intensive Scrabble competition. I don’t think I’ll ever be a
prize-winning Scrabble player, but I am a word nerd. If you are too,
then perhaps it’s time you met Ambrose.
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