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 everywhereElla 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 … 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. The result is “a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere” (Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season).
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i bought this on a whim at Half Price Books years ago and am so glad i did. it’s a quick read, fun and whimsical, but still thoughtful. a great choice for word and language lovers who need a little bit of a light hearted brain break.
Hilarious! The founder of the community died and the letters on the inscription on his statue are falling off at random. The town council members think it may be a message from their founder and decide he doesn’t want them to use the “fallen” letters in any written communications. What ensues becomes a struggle for the community in all their written communications.
Great concept and a lot of fun.
Captivatingly written. I was amused by the linguistic games the whole way through. Highly recommend.
This secular satire is written as a series of notes penned from island where the permissible use of certain letters is increasingly restricted. The result is a funny and creative story that handles the satire well, without turning derogatory. In addition, it provides a fascinating commentary of the destructive nature of hero worship, the necessity of powerful language, and the connection between the two. Recommended for teens and adults looking for a thought-provoking or off-beat read.
Ella Minnow Pea is one of my favorite books. It is a book of letters written by Ella, who lives on a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina. The island is named after Nevin Nollop who came up with the phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” There is a statue of Nollop and the famous phrase on the island. This is the story, told by the letters that Ella writes, about what happens when letters start to drop off the statue. It’s just a great read!
Really interesting book about reading, history, and social life in a small community. Excellent short novel.
Clever wordsmithing – a fun read.
This story is about a young girl named Ella Minnow Pea. She lives on an island called Nollop – off the coast of the United States. According to the people there, the founder – Nevin Nollop – came up with the saying: “A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” – a sentence we all know from our childhood that contains every letter of the alphabet. The saying is on individual letter tiles in town – in front of a statue of Nollop. One day the letter z tile falls off the sign and breaks. A little girl picks up the pieces and takes it to the town council. The council sees this as a sign from Nollop that the towns people can no longer use the letter z in any letters, books, talking, etc. The towns people – on the whole -think this is crazy, but decide to go along with the council. If they don’t they first get a warning. 2nd they get a lashing or put in the wood stocks in town, and 3rd – banished from the island. Soon more and more tiles are falling off the sign and each time, those letters are banished from use by the towns people. A lot of people start leaving the island – some voluntarily – some not due to accidental use of those letters. One girl – Ella – and a man from American – Nate – talk to the council and try to tell them that it is just old glue, not Nollop himself, that is making the tiles fall off. The don’t believe it, but do agree that if Nate and Ella can come up with a NEW sentence with 32 letters in it (all alphabet letters) then they will reverse the restricted use of letters on the island.
Will the sentence get made before all the tiles fall off and no letters are left to be used?
This book was short and really cute. It became funnier and funnier to see the towns people try to figure out how to write letters to each other without the use of certain letters. The even took to renaming the days of the week and months of the year.
It could be viewed as a symbol of what it would be like if a small few controlled the many. Hmmmmm…..sound familiar?
Take a look at this book. IT is well worth a read!
Read this book now. I gifted it 4 times so far.
An interesting premise but a slow start that picked up. I loved the fact that there was a resistance to the main establishment in this make believe country. Most everything is written in letter format from person to person. The author needed to be very creative in word choice as the book progressed.
Intriguing, page turning take on how fascism grows and what happens when people don’t speak up. I couldn’t put down this eloquent, compelling read!
I really enjoyed this quirky and sometimes humorous story. The format is a series of written communications between family members, neighbors, friends and government officials on the island of Nollop, off the coast of Charleston, SC. I loved the use of language and creativity as the islanders re-worked words to communicate without the use of banned letters of the alphabet. The novel reflects what might be possible living under a totalitarian regime and how some fight for freedom under difficult conditions. I enjoyed the challenge of,trying to read and decipher the missives written with an ever shrinking number of letters.
A unique way of presenting the development of a malign change in an ordinary well ordered community. I couldn’t put it down. I was a linguistics minor in college and loved the process of linguistic adaptation that paralleled the deterioration of civil rights and social values on the island. An excellent read.
Great commentary on the perils of a government with too much power.
I love words and language and this book delivers both in a surprising way.
Incredibly imaginative!
Clever
a nice break between historical fiction and non-fiction
Didn’t finish. Uninteresting.