Author: Mark Dunn is from Memphis, Tennessee. He studied at Memphis State University and then did
Synopsis: This novel is "a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable." Emma Minnow Pea (if read quickly out loud is LMNOP) lives in Nollop, a fictional place named after the founder of the 36 word sentence that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," also called a pangram. The statue dedicated to Nollop has this phrase glued to it. After hundreds of years the letters slowly start falling of. As the letters fall off the council over this little area of the world forbid the use of the letters because they think it's a sign from Nollop to stop using them. First Z, then Q, then J, and then things get really tricky when D goes missing. The book is written in letters and it's interesting seeing how the characters struggle to communicate with each other as the letters go and as they get in trouble and have to face the consequences of using the words by being whipped or banished from the island. Ella, alone, must solve this problem and save her home so the people she loves can be together again.
Review: Oh my!! I don't think there are enough good things I can say about this book. It was incredibly clever! There were parts that were depressing as people died or were killed. There were other parts that were difficult to read because of the loss of so many letters. It was easier to read it out loud to figure out what they were trying to say. It also demonstrates the dangers of fascism and the importance of freedom of speech. I absolutely recommend this book. It was very clean and short so a quick read. There are lots of big words that I do not use in my regular vocabulary so I was grateful for the dictionary in my NookColor so I knew exactly what the author was saying. I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!
Rating: ***** Five Stars
