The Word Eater is a 2000 children's book by Mary Amato. It focuses on a middle-school girl named Lerner Chance, who comes across an earthworm named Fip. She discovers Fip has magical powers, as he eats words instead of dirt, and whenever he eats a word, that thing will vanish from the world. Lerner tries to decide how best to use Fip's powers, while one of her classmates, Bobby Nitz, suspects she's behind the disappearances and starts to investigate.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Bobby's father is bad-tempered and blames him for anything that goes wrong. He becomes nicer due to Fip's influence.
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Bobby's aborted attempt to erase Mr. Droan results in his suit disappearing, Lerner calls it "funny but not okay."
- Alpha Bitch: Reba, who heads the elitist MPOOE student organization and bullies outcast students whenever she can.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The Attackaterriers are only vicious because they've been tortured since they were puppies and aren't used to being treated kindly.
- Beware of Vicious Dog: The Attackaterriers, due to being tortured from birth to make them grow up mean. However, Lerner uses Fip to erase the effects of their torture, which causes them to become friendly and saves Lucia's life.
- Character Development: Bobby is mean to Lerner at first (granted, she did try to get him in trouble as a dare) but becomes nicer as he gets to know her better.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Archibald Mack, who employs child slaves and tortures puppies to make them into Attackaterriers.
- Designated Hero: Lampshaded in-universe, as Lerner makes a list of all the ways she's used Fip's magic and concludes that only one of them (making Bobby's father nicer) can be considered good.
- Gray-and-Grey Morality: When it comes to Lerner and Bobby's rivalry, neither really has the high ground as they both treat each other badly, which they ultimately admit to.
- Hero Antagonist: Bobby Nitz isn't a nice person at first, but is rightly concerned about all the disappearances and wants to solve the mystery, and rightly suspects Lerner is behind it.
- Kid Detective: Bobby becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, putting his Internet research skills to good use, and is soon able to zero in on Lerner.
- Left Hanging: Early on, Fip eats the date September 1 from next year's calendar. The book ends without resolving what effect this will have on the world, though a psychic predicts that something big is going to happen on that day.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Lerner's reaction after she erases Bobby's dog Ripper.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Would you want an Attackaterrier for a pet?
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: Lerner feeds Fip the word "Gurkengabel" assuming that it's harmless because nothing could actually be called that. She's wrong.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Fip, and by extension anyone who controls him. It's shown that Fip himself has little idea of what he's doing and can sense from Lerner's reaction that something happens when he eats a word, but he's not sure why she's so intent on making him eat.
- Ret-Gone: Anything eaten by Fip becomes this, even living things.
- Sadist Teacher: Mr. Droan, who doesn't care about his students and treats them like dirt. He later becomes a prison guard, stating that teachers who don't enjoy teaching should do the same.
- Snooping Little Kid: Bobby becomes curious about what's going on after his prank on his teacher goes wrong due to the thumbtacks disappearing, and decides to investigate.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Lerner at first doesn't realize the effects of Fip eating words. She later tries to find nonsense words for him to eat, only to learn that there improbably is something by that name.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The subplot focusing on Archibald Mack is much darker and more intense than the rest of the story, focusing on themes like child slavery and animal torture.
- Would Hurt a Child: Mack has no qualms about murdering Lucia to keep her quiet.
