**Note: review of ARC. Duncan Dorfman, April Blunt, and Nate Saviano live faraway from one another and have one thing in common: they are all bright children who will compete in the national Scrabble competition held in Florida and each has a special reason for being in the competition.

Duncan Dorfman is drafted to go when major competitor Carl Slater realizes that Duncan has a gift which will give him an edge in the competition: Duncan can read with his fingertips--and we're not talking about Braille here. By running his fingers over printed letters and words, Duncan can "read" them without seeing them. Carl quickly realizes how beneficial this will be for picking the prize letters from a big of tiles in competition. Unfortunately, this is Duncan's only value to Carl and he knows it.

April Blunt is the sole intellectual in a family of athletes. Sports are so important that April feels like an outsider as she strives to make her family see Scrabble as a "competitive sport." April also wants to attend the national championship in hopes that she will find a boy she met at the pool while her family was on vacation.

Nate Saviano has no desire to go to the competition or even to play Scrabble, but his father is fixated on his winning the championship because of his own failure to win the title when he was twelve years old. Nate's father has arranged Nate's life so that he no longer attends school with the friends he wants to see. He is home-schooled so that most of his time can be spent memorizing word lists and working on letter combinations.

Readers who like wordplay or Scrabble will enjoy the hints about the game in the book. Others will enjoy the book for its characters and their problems and relationships.