Word Nerd by Susin (sic) Nielsen 4 stars

[Karin]

This was an unexpected pleasure. Fact: I found this, plus another book of the same title, when doing a DuckDuckGo search for "word nerd." This was not because I was looking for books, but you are not likely to be interested in that story. If you don't know DuckDuckGo, it's an alternative to google.

Ambrose is one of the most delightful nerds I have ever read about in fiction. He nearly dies when a trio of bullies slip a peanut into his sandwich, is switched to correspondence school and befriends Cosmos, the recently returned ex-con son of their Greek landlords who live upstairs. With some fun, almost-only-in-y/a middle-rade fiction, scenes, they become allies and form a rather delightful friendship.

This is set primarily in the Kitsilano (aka Kits, although Kits isn't used in the book) area of Vancouver, one of the neighbourhoods I lived in during my university, etc, years, so he visits some of my old stomping grounds from that year and of course other years. But even better, he loves to play Scrabble, and, it turns out, Cosmo likes it as well.