It's not easy being a nerd, as 12-year-old Ambrose knows only too well. The unlikely, endearing hero of 's Word Nerd has bullies, no friends, and an overprotective mother. The only thing he is really good at is Scrabble.
Ambrose needs to figure out that what makes you nerdy when you're young is what makes you interesting when you grow up. But he faces a difficult choice when he realizes the person who stands in his way to thriving is the one people who loves him the most: his mother.
Hilarious and tender, this novel celebrates the courage it takes to rebel in loving, necessary ways when you're young, and the importance of staying true to your inner nerd.
Word Nerd is peppered with Canadian cultural references, including an extended cameo appearance by Peter Mansbridge in Ambrose's fantasy about what it would be like to have the ideal father.
Also intriguing is the way in which Scrabble permeates the novel. You can practically hear the tiles clinking as each chapter title is created from an initial row of scrambled letters. Ambrose's mind similarly goes into a tailspin of letter arranging and rearranging whenever he is confronted by something that makes him uncomfortable, such as when someone from the forbidden Scrabble club he joins calls him "like, mildly autistic or something." Aspects of the novel's structure and narrator call to mind 's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Word Nerd was recently included on the Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children Shortlist and marks Gemini and Canadian Screenwriter Award winning author Nielsen's first foray into Intermediate Fiction.
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