Adolescent Ambrose Craves Scrabble and Mentorship in Word Nerd

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.

The Joy of Scrabble

I have already reviewed Scrabble, but when I was invited to participate in this write-off celebrating our favorite games, I knew that Scrabble had to be my choice. So I will be reviewing the deluxe edition of Scrabble, which is much more luxurious and practical than the original version. But first, a word or two about the game...

I have always loved Scrabble. My love of words has a lot to do with it, and there is also the thrill of arranging the tiles into a jackpot of points. Scrabble is one of the games we pull out most often, and we even have a notebook where we record our scores, along with the date of the game played. We haven't always kept that kind of a record; that came about a few years ago when I was in a Scrabble-obsessed phase and we played just about every day. Suffice it to say, Scrabble is my friend.

But I hadn't played it all that much recently until a friend of mine reawakened my interest in the game. We had just returned defeated from the college his sister and I attend. The group of us - the three of us and three friends - had planned to play Midnight Bingo, but we arrived to discover that the date had been misadvertised. As we sat at their house pondering what to do, he came up with the idea of playing Midnight Scrabble instead. So it was that we swung by my house to pick up my board and found ourselves starting up a game of Scrabble at midnight.

It was a revamped, revitalized version of Scrabble which reminded me a bit of the Disney commercial with the little girl who changes the rules to the game and ends up spelling
"supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." (Fun fact: That word was in the title of my first review of Scrabble, which was written long before I saw this commercial.) At any rate, the whole point was just to have fun and to prove that board games don't have to be "bored" games. We didn't even bother to keep score, and we created a completely different set of house rules. It was grand.

So I've been on a Scrabble kick lately. And although most of my games at home with my parents have occurred a little earlier in the day and have followed the more traditional rules, I can't forget the impetus for my renewed love of the game. Scrabble: Teenagers (and college folks) think it's cool, too!

Um... That was more than a word. But that's okay. Here's the gist: For anyone unfortunate enough not to know already, Scrabble is a game consisting of a board and a bag full of lettered tiles. In the deluxe version, the tiles are reddish-brown with white lettering. The board is plastic, and each square is set off in a groove. This is a very helpful in preventing the board from being wiped out by a clutzy movement. Also extremely useful is the turnstile underneath the board, which allows players to turn the board towards them on their turn. These special features make it the ideal board to own.

Although any number of house rules can be implemented, as I noted earlier, the basic rules are that each player has seven tiles on a given turn. That player must make a word by building off of a letter already on the board, except for the first word of the game, which must cover the star in the center of the board. The words can go horizontally or vertically, and special spaces on the board add extra points. There is a 50 point bonus for using all seven tiles. Proper nouns and foreign phrases are not officially allowed, though we dispensed with that rule quickly during Midnight Scrabble. When the bag is empty, the first person to use all of his or her remaining tiles collects the points remaining on the other players' trays. Whoever finishes with the most points wins.

However you play it, S-c-r-a-b-b-l-e spells fun, and it?s my pick for favorite game.

How Do You Spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

All right, so it's got about 25 too many letters. And it probably wouldn't count as a real word. But just think what a score it would get! Scrabble encourages everyone, from reading-level children to adults, to enhance their vocabulary. The more words you know, the more creative and lucrative your turns can be. Of course, the placement of the words is just as important as the words themselves. A well-placed three-letter word can easily outdo a six-letter word out in the open.

A delightful way to get kids interested in spelling and give adults a chance to show off to each other, there isn't much bad you can say about this game. You and the other players determine the course of the game. You can even bend the rules a bit for an interesting twist. For instance, you could have a "Star Trek" night where every word had to have something to do with Star Trek. Or a name night so you can use all those names you're not allowed to put on the board in a regular game.

The possibilities are endless, and each game of Scrabble is a couple of hours well spent engaging your mind and having fun at the same time. One word of warning: If you buy this particular version, you risk the letters sliding all over the board. The deluxe rotating plastic gameboard with grooves for each square is more expensive but it is money well spent. There are few things more infuriating when playing a game than to be winning gloriously only to have the gameboard wrecked before your victory can be sealed!