A Seven Letter Word by Kim Slater

Finlay is a young teen with a stammer and a talent for playing scrabble. It was him and his mum's thing to do but as his mum disappeared two years ago from him and his dad's lives and hasn't made contact since.

So when online playing scrabble, Alex, a stranger, starts talking to Finlay and coincidentally mentions they have had a new stepmum for the past two years and she walked out on her family, Finlay wants to investigate believing she could be his mum.

Meanwhile, he has to contend with the school bully Oliver whom is a part of the school scrabble team Finlay ends up joining where he befriends Maryam, a refugee girl whom has to put up with bullying from Oliver also.

Then Finlays house gets broken in to, clues on his mum's things become apparent and suddenly, Finlay finds out his mum wasn't as perfect as he first believed...

The book deals with a lot of serious topics from racial bullying to the pressure of making friends and of course the book's main topic, of stammering. It's ironic Finlay is so good with written words as he can't articulate himself clearly verbally. It was great combining a mystery with a medical/life problem and stammers are rarely written about in children's fiction too which makes it even better and hopefully if anyone reads it whom had a stammer will feel at ease with a relatable character written about.

Word Nerd by Susin Nielsen

Ambrose lives with his single mum who's a professor which means they move around a lot for her work. When at his current school, bullies take their game to the extreme and nearly kill him by not believing in his peanut allergy, his mum allows him to be schooled from home through the school so long as she works night classes and Mr and Mrs Economopolus look after him.

However when their criminal son, Cosmo randomly returns after being let out of his six month jail sentence he got for drug use and thus breaking and entering, the two become friends even though his mum doesn't want them hanging around together.

Ambrose and Cosmo join a Word Nerd scrabble group and Cosmo keeps going under the guise of being Ambrose's big brother to try and get somewhere with Amanda, the scrabble group leader until she finds out about his prison time and the two guys have to appeal to her to give Cosmo another chance.

Cosmo's ex con buddy who he used to steal with Silvero however keeps making threats and while Ambrose fakes his mum's signature to carry on attending his scrabble group, enter a tournament there and win a prize while his mum goes on a date with his teacher, just what is Silvero  planning?

Susin's books are always so fresh and fun, Ambrose was a great literally colourful character in nature as well as his choices of clothing. Being twelve, he made me empathise with him as if he was my younger brother, I'm twenty and don't have any siblings but Ambrose would be ideal as he's so different and doesn't stop being himself despite the bullying he endures!