Twelve-year-old Ambrose is a glass-half-full kind of guy. A
self-described "friendless nerd," he moves from place to place every
couple of years with his overprotective mother, Irene. When some bullies
at his new school almost kill him by slipping a peanut into his sandwich
-- even though they know he has a deathly allergy -- Ambrose is
philosophical. Irene, however, is not and decides that Ambrose will be
home-schooled.
Alone in the evenings when Irene goes to work, Ambrose pesters Cosmo,
the twenty-five-year-old son of the Greek landlords who live upstairs.
Cosmo has just been released from jail for breaking and entering to
support a drug habit. Quite by accident, Ambrose discovers that they
share a love of Scrabble and coerces Cosmo into taking him to the West
Side Scrabble Club, where Cosmo falls for Amanda, the club director.
Posing as Ambrose's Big Brother to impress her, Cosmo is motivated to
take Ambrose to the weekly meetings and to give him lessons in
self-defense. Cosmo, Amanda, and Ambrose soon form an unlikely alliance
and, for the first time in his life, Ambrose blossoms. The characters at
the Scrabble Club come to embrace Ambrose for who he is and for their
shared love of words. There's only one problem: Irene has no idea what
Ambrose is up to.
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.
