Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters [J0253]

2002 - PB Nice clean conditon. 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 has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This was a really fun quick read for me, but I can't imagine how difficult it was to write all those letters without using certain letters of the alphabet! Well done, sir. I would love to know the future of the fictional town of Nollop. The vocabulary in this book at the beginning especially was fantastic. A real treat for word lovers!"; "This book took language and bent and stretched and dumped it in glitter and then cut up into smaller pieces. It explores themes of religious extremism, totalitarianism, and civil unrest."; "Set on a fictional island obsessed with language, this clever and unusual novel follows a community whose freedom of expression slowly begins to unravel after strict linguistic rules are enforced. Told through letters and wordplay, the story explores censorship, conformity, and the power words hold over people and society."