Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters [B0544]

2002 PB. A hilarious and moving story of one girl's fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island's Council, which bans the use of a letter whenever that letter's tile falls from a memorial statue. And as each letters is progressively banned, the letter also disappears from the remainder of the novel. The result is "a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere"-Myla Goldberg, best-selling author of Bee Season.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Endlessly charming, this book really conveys joy for words more than probably any book I've ever read. Also authoritarianism sucks. You should read this."; "Super clever and fun. I had a great time reading this, which is what you want from any book."; "Absolutely amazing. It's hard to believe this was written so long ago. The recent period of censorship is so clearly illustrated in such a simple book. I read the book because of a book challenge. I'm now buying a copy of the book for my local library. It's a reminder of the great power of words."