Hello again! Here we are, a week later and I’m right on track. I read a book, and I really enjoyed it. I was actually able to finish it in only 2 or 3 sittings because it’s rather short. Without further ado, I’ll jump right in to this week’s book review. The book in question? Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn.

I first heard about this book last fall when I was planning a writing curriculum for an afterschool program that I coordinated. I thought it would be fun to teach the children about pangrams (noun — a sentence or verse that contains all the letters of the alphabet) and lipograms (noun — a composition from which the writer systematically omits a certain letter or certain letters of the alphabet). It’s an interesting exercise to try writing pangrams and lipograms. It sounds easy at first, but then you realize that your pangram is missing a “J” or you made it halfway through an anti “G” lipogrammatic paragraph only to realize that you accidentally used the exiled letter in an important word. Anyway, “Ella Minnow Pea” utilizes both of these forms of writing to present an interesting story about language, government control, creativity, and bravery.

So much is jam packed into this book. Even the title is sopping with lipograms, puns, music, and careful foreshadowing. The plotline is that Ella Minnow Pea lives with her family on the fictional island of Nollop, named for its most famous resident, the late Nevin Nollop. Nollop became famous for penning the phrase, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” A scan of that sentence will show you that the sentence is a pangram. In fact, it is one of the shortest pangrams in the english language at only 35 letters. The residents of Nollop have immortalized the phrase and begin banning the use of certain letters as individual letter tiles begin to fall from a memorial to Nollop in the town square. Because the writing style is through written correspondence between characters, the reader can clearly see the binding effects of the removal of even the least used letters. As the letters fall speaking and writing becomes tedious and the outlook is bleak. But Dunn does not disappoint and the ending is completely brilliant! I’ll leave it at that, in case you decide to dig into this one yourself…which you definitely should.

I really enjoyed Dunn’s “personal letter” style of writing. It allows the reader to understand so many different points of view and gives the story a lot of depth. I quickly began to empathize with the characters. I felt their frustration over the increasing control of the government, I felt sad at the loss of island residents, and I was overjoyed when, at long last, the wonderful ending unfolded. I am also in love with the use of vocabulary. It is so rich and refreshing compared to the way people in my generation tend to speak #sorryimnotsorry

All in all, I give this book a 4 out of 5, mostly because I can’t, in good conscience, put it on the same level as a beautiful piece by Austen or a poignant children’s book. Works like those deserve a special place where the 5th star is awarded.

I hope you enjoyed my first official review! Keep in mind that I am not a professional writer, editor, critic, or anything fancy, shmancy like that. Hopefully my review skills will improve as this project goes on! If you found yourself interested in this book, here are a few others featuring lipograms that you might enjoy:

1. Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
2. Eunoia by Christian Bök
3. Cipher and Poverty (The Book of Nothing) by Mark Schertzer

Up for review next week: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs