Ella Minnow Pea

A Novel in Letters

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. The result is "a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere" (Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season).

Reseñas de la Crítica

“There’s the whiff of a classic about Ella Minnow Pea.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“A love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere.” —Myla Goldberg

“A curiously compelling . . . satire of human foibles, and a light-stepping commentary on censorship and totalitarianism.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“This exceptional, zany book will quickly make you laugh.” —Dallas Morning Herald

beautifully read.

I liked the emphasis put on certain words and when the letters went misspelled the pronunciation was incredible.

A lighter version of The Hand Maidens Tale

In a society governed by letters, what happens when they start disappearing, and the powers that be take it as a sign?

Clever Enough

Perhaps read this one. It doesn’t lend itself to being read aloud. The repetitive alphabet lists became tedious and the missing letters would be clearer and less annoying if scanned by the eye.
This would be most suitable for eighth or ninth year students. Couple it with Animal Farm for some critical thinking lessons. And a great opportunity to expand vocabulary.
If you are not a Word Nerd, you might not enjoy this.
It grew tiresome for me. And I'm a Word Nerd...

Wonderful

I laughed out loud a few times. I think this was a great way to “read” this.

Amazing book

Excellent performance, important message, full of discussion material, thought provoking. 10 stars. I loved this book.