Every now and then, there is a book written specifically and unequivocally for book lovers--for those who relish in language, who love the twists and turns that words can create. Ella Minnow Pea is the quintessential example of this. From its delightful title right down to its last page, you'll be awestruck and enamored with how Dunn masterfully plays with language. Ella Minnow Pea lives in the country of Nollop, a tiny island off of South Carolina that was the birthplace of the first pangram: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The townspeople of Nollop revere this sentence more than anything and even have a sculpture in town honoring this sentence, which uses every letter of the alphabet. However, trouble strikes with the letters begin falling off the sculpture, and the tyrannical City Council declares that once a letter falls, it can no longer be used. It can't be spoken. It can't be written. Nothing--and the punishment for using a fallen grapheme is banishment. The story is told in letters between the townspeople, and as the novel progresses, the people of Nollop must use increasingly inventive language to avoid the forbidden letters. A crazy, linguistically brilliant completely original love letter to the English language, Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable is delightful beyond words. Read with a dictionary in hand!
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Beth gives it five out of five carrots!
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