Word Nerd by Susin Nielsen
In a world of dark disturbing dystopian teenage fiction this book stands out for its upbeat feeling gentle storytelling and quirky humour.
Meet Ambrose Bukowski whose Mum decided he should do distance learning after finding he was being bullied and that the bullies nearly killed him by slipping a peanut in his sandwich. (He has a serious peanut allergy)
She has carefully cossetted and protected him for years since his Dad died very suddenly. But when she is at work she is oblivious to the odd friendship/alliance that develops between Ambrose and Cosmo, an ex-convict and the son of his mother’s landlords. The two have discovered a shared passion for Scrabble and the alliance helps them both pursue other different agendas as well.
There are lots of twists and turns to the plot and it is full of great word play as you might expect. Each chapter heading has a selection of letters which spell out words, often relating to the content of that part of the story and the main word that is unscrambled is the chapter heading.
All works out for Cosmo and Ambrose in the end but not before a lot of hard lessons are learnt and the truth is out and must be faced by all the main characters!
This is a great book for the younger teen who wants an entertaining and humorous story.
