Book Review #24

Book: Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Age-range: 10 and up (with the help of a dictionary)
Recommended: Yes

This has been on my to-read list since it was published back in 2001.  Until I actually held the book in my hands I hadn't realized it was not a young adult novel.  Interesting.  I also love that Mark Dunn is a playwright and this was his first novel.  Also, I usually hate books written in letters and journal entries because, by their very nature, there's more telling than showing, and it drives me bonkers.  This, for some reason, did not.  This book is all about language.  There are a lot of big words in here that I had to look up, but that was part of the fun I had with it.

In the fictional island of Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, there is a problem.  The island was founded by Nevin Nollip, author of the famous line. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  This sentence uses all the letters of the alphabet with minimal repetition of letters.  The problem in Nollop is that the letters of the shrine are falling down, and the council bans each letter as it falls!  First goes the z, which doesn't seem so bad at first, but as the letters are limited one by one life gets harder and harder.

This book is supposedly a commentary on censorship and totalitarianism, but I read it a little differently.  In our lives if we justify one act, it's so much easier to justify the next, and the next, and the next, until we are someone who lacks character and integrity.  Although I do agree it makes you wonder about each limitation enforced and what will happen if you give an inch, so to speak.

All in all this is an amazing book full of beautiful words and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a love of language!