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Description
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). Read more
Publisher : Vintage
Publication date : September 17, 2002
Edition : Reprint
Language : English
Print length : 208 pages
ISBN-10 : 0385722435
ISBN-13 : 38
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.58 x 7.91 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #21,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in Epistolary Fiction (Books) #57 in Fiction Satire #109 in Humorous Fiction
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Top Amazon Reviews
I'm a writer and an editor. This book was so much fun to read. It started out with such fancy writing that you had to re-read it twice or three times to understand it--usually a no-no for a book--but it was so intriguing I couldn't put it down. The metaphor for the politics that is going on in the country right now was on point, where people are afraid to speak their minds or have opinions that don't fall in line with the main stream media or you are cancelled. The leaders' antics are like those in "The Emperor's New Clothes," only in this book, even if a child points out the idiocy, they are also punished. This book had some twists and turns and it was fun to try to keep up with the alphabet-speak. I loved the transitions to the spelling of the words. I actually had to read it aloud to be able to understand what they were saying. At one point, when read aloud, it sounded like phonetic German--another metaphor. I was a quick read and I highly recommend it, especially for wordsmiths who love words and the English language. It really was genius.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2020 by sknight
Ella lives on the fictional island of Nollop, set off the coast of South Carolina with her friends and family. Nollip is named after Nevin Nollop – the creator of the well-known pangram, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” The sentence is tacked on to a statue commemorating Nollop in the town’s center. One by one, letters start to fall from the statue, and as they do, the island’s High Council interpret this as a sign from Nollop himself – banning letters from use in speech and writing. Citizens of Nollop must adapt to a new way of life and adjust their communication – carefully tip-toeing around the illicit letters. Ella and her friends work to restore the full 26-letter alphabet to her fellow citizens, with it restoring freedom of speech and communication. If you are looking for an intelligent read, with a dense plot and fully developed characters centered around totalitarianism, censorship vs free speech, superstition vs science – this is not the book for you. Quite frankly – there are far better books for that. If you are looking for a quick, pleasant read and some mental stimulation – this is the book for you (you can read this book in its entirety in a mere afternoon). The story is told through a series of letters between citizens of Nollop – and it becomes more challenging to read these exchanges as an increasing number of letters are banned. At first – seemingly less common and unimportant letters conveniently fell from the statue. No worries. Child’s play. But as the story unfolds, there are in fact certain words with such letters that can’t quite be expressed the same with substitutions. Turns out these letters, however infrequently used, are vital members of our alphabet. It certainly becomes a mental challenge to work around illicit letters and communicate the same – and its also a brain teaser just to interpret some messages meanings. Overall, I give this book 3 stars. Certainly not an in-depth analysis of some intense thought-provoking topics– but it was an overall cute and fun read! A nice change of pace to my usual reads.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2020 by Kayla Ali
I've been slowly making my way though a long list of books recommended by a librarian friend of mine. Next on the chopping block was this relatively short, but powerfully effective novel about the importance of vocabulary, and the deadly consequences of a power hungry government. Taking place on a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina, there resides a tiny country called Nollop; named after Nevin Nollop---the man who coined the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"; a sentence that uses all 26 letters of the English alphabet. This small island nation that prides itself on rejecting most modern amenities, celebrating vocabulary, and communicates primarily through letter writing, practically worships Nevin Nollop as a god among men, with a statue of him and his famous phrase displayed in the village. But one fateful day, the tile containing the letter "Z" decays and falls off the statue. The island's governmental Council quickly interprets this as a sign from the deceased Nollop that the letter "Z" should be taken out of the alphabet, and thus, everyone is forbidden to write or speak any word that contains the letter. At first, the residents hardly see this as a problem and obediently follow the new rules, with failure to do so resulting in eventual banishment (or death if the person refuses to leave). But as time goes on, more and more of the letters begin to break off, resulting in the alphabet exponentially shrinking....and causing the island Council to employ harsher, near-Gestapo levels of law to keep their positions of power. As the people's rights are slowly taken away, families are torn apart, the community falls into disarray, and everyone's vocabulary becomes more stilted and caveman-like, it'll be up to a teenage girl named Ella Minnow Pea to find a way to convince the Council of their insane wrong-doings, and bring order to this once-thriving nation. If given the chance, I could probably write an entire college essay on all the layers and subtle nuances contained in this one book that takes less than two hours to fully read. But without giving too much away, let's just say there's a surprising amount of harsh lessons jam packed into this fairly short story that, I would argue, is a quietly disguised horror novel---mostly psychological horror, that is. The situation starts off innocent enough, with this old-world society thinking they'll be fine without one letter, but the longer the restrictions stay in place, the more of their rights that get taken away, to the point of police invading people's homes and the government reading everyone's mail to make sure no forbidden letters are in it. (The huge irony being that supposedly, Nevin Nollop himself said "don't open your neighbor's mail", showing just how deluded the Council's become.) This leads to some extremely clever wordplay as the story goes on, with the island residents having to come up with different words, and alter their speech the more letters they lose, to the point of the book becoming near-incomprehensible. In an extended series of letters between members of the island community, we see, in real time, how quickly a government and society can fall when unjust laws are put into place, the danger and futility of treating ordinary humans like gods, and how far a governmental power will go to maintain supremacy. It also includes a debate on science versus religion, and how people will give any excuse to maintain their viewpoint despite clear evidence to the contrary, as well as what happens when a section of faith is taken too far---in particular, what happens when a government twists religion to further their own ends. Most importantly of all, when a new, arguably strange and/or unjust law is passed, we see how society tends to react from every angle. They either: *blindly follow the law without question *hate the law and leave the island to start a new life somewhere else *hate the law, but choose to keep quiet and make do as best they can, in fear of being targeted *hate the law and actively fight to change it Through it all, we see how people are quick to either help or turn against one another to ensure their own survival. In one memorable instance, a character accidentally uses one of the forbidden letters, to which one of her neighbors eagerly rats her out to the authorities....only to have this bite them in the ass later when they themselves violate one of the laws, and they find themselves having to go to that same neighbor and beg for help. And it all leads to a bitter sweet ending. When your leaders have been exposed for the lying, power hungry dictators they are, and you've had your own friends and neighbors turn against you during a crisis, you can't exactly come back from that. And even though the day is ultimately saved, it comes at a high cost, and it's clear that, for good or for ill, life on Nollop will never be the same again. Much as I'd like to see a movie adaption, this is one story that really cannot be told in any other format, lest it loose its impact. It ONLY works as a book, and it's a book that should probably become required reading in schools. It's one tale that'll stay with me for a long time.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2021 by KarToon12
A story for our current times in America. Interestingly written in letters. This is the story of restrictions by idiotic people in power. It is the story of Ella who stays behind to fight the good fight against that idiotic restriction. It is also the story about how a restriction might not affect you personally at a particular moment but you find that that one restriction does affect you in the end - thus the importance of standing up, speaking out, and resisting that restriction. It's funny, poignant, and the verbiage is exquisite.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2017 by 60sgirl