Susin Nielsen
Word Nerd
Meet Ambrose – a twelve-year-old with a talent for mismatching his clothes, for saying the wrong thing at the worst possible time, and for words. In short, he’s a self-described nerd. Making friends is especially hard because he and his overprotective mother, Irene, have had to move so often. When bullies at his latest school almost kill him by deliberately slipping a peanut into his sandwich, Ambrose is philosophical. Irene, however, is not, and decides that Ambrose will take correspondence classes from home.
Home is the basement apartment in a house owned by a kindly Greek couple. Surely Ambrose will be safe here. But unbeknownst to his mother, Ambrose strikes up an unlikely one-way friendship with the landlord’s son, Cosmo, based on the only thing they have in common: a love of Scrabble. Ambrose learned to play with his mother at the kitchen table. Cosmo learned to play in prison. When Ambrose convinces the reluctant Cosmo to take him to a Scrabble club, a small deception mushrooms and they both find much more than they bargained for, from run-ins with lowlifes to high romance.
In this brilliantly observed novel, author Susin Nielsen transports the reader to the world of competitive Scrabble as seen from the honest yet funny viewpoint of a boy who’s searching for acceptance and for a place to call home.
Awards/Honours
Winner of the 2010 Red Maple Award
Winner of the 2010 Rocky Mountain Book Award
Winner of the 2010 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award
Winner of the 2010 Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Award (Snow Willow)
Winner of ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year – Silver 2008 Juvenile Fiction
Nominated for the 2010 Golden Oak Award
Nominated for the 2009 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award
Shortlisted for the 2009 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award
Shortlisted for the 2009 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards
One of The Globe and Mail’s “Susan Perren’s Top 10 Children’s Books for ’08”
Inspiration Behind Word Nerd
Meet Ambrose – a twelve-year-old with a talent for mismatching his clothes, for saying the wrong thing at the worst possible time, and for words. In short, he’s a self-described nerd. Making friends is especially hard because he and his overprotective mother, Irene, have had to move so often. When bullies at his latest school almost kill him by deliberately slipping a peanut into his sandwich, Ambrose is philosophical. Irene, however, is not, and decides that Ambrose will take correspondence classes from home.
Home is the basement apartment in a house owned by a kindly Greek couple. Surely Ambrose will be safe here. But unbeknownst to his mother, Ambrose strikes up an unlikely one-way friendship with the landlord’s son, Cosmo, based on the only thing they have in common: a love of Scrabble. Ambrose learned to play with his mother at the kitchen table. Cosmo learned to play in prison. When Ambrose convinces the reluctant Cosmo to take him to a Scrabble club, a small deception mushrooms and they both find much more than they bargained for, from run-ins with lowlifes to high romance.
In this brilliantly observed novel, author Susin Nielsen transports the reader to the world of competitive Scrabble as seen from the honest yet funny viewpoint of a boy who’s searching for acceptance and for a place to call home.