Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea is a book of letters in more than one meaning of the word. It is, indeed an epistolary novel – a genre I fell in love with when I first read Lady Susan in the 7th grade. But it is also a book honoring and recognizing the importance of each individual letter of the alphabet – a lesson that my kindergarten teacher drilled into my mind when she insisted that each letter of the alphabet was to be respected. No ella-minnow-pea in her classroom. Miss Jerry would have been appreciated in this whimsical little world of Nollop.
Ella Minnow Pea takes place on the fictional language centered island of Nollop, named for the supposed creator of the famous typing test – “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG.” Nollop is revered on this little island for being able to create a sentence using every letter of the alphabet with only 35 characters. He is revered so much that this sentence is mounted on an archway above the town square. when the letter Z from the word “lazy” tumbles from its post, the town council is sure that this is a message sent from heaven above. Nollop is telling them that the letter Z is now obsolete, and thus must be removed from all writing and speech. Those who do not comply will first be admonished; a second infraction will result in being put into the stocks or beaten. And finally, a third will result in the banishment from the island, or death if you would so prefer.
The members of this community do not, at first, recognize the terror before them. But when the other letters begin to fall, everything changes. The two main correspondents, Ella and her cousin Tassie’s letters begin as light and witty notes to one another, but as the novel progresses and letters leave the alphabet, the writing becomes intentionally more stilted and difficult to understand. While this may sound irritating, it is actually quite interesting to have to read the book out-loud when the characters are forced to write phonetically (fonetikly) to communicate with one another.
But aside from the odd hook incorporated by Dunn, the story is one of relationships of family, and a dedication to the most basic form of freedom of speech. The characters fight to regain their right to use each lovely and important letter of the alphabet, and ultimately discover that perhaps it is not the people who work with language who should be honored, but the words and their potential for creativity that deserve the recognition.
Read the book when you’re awake enough to realize the play on words Ella Minnow Pea as a name (Thanks Ruth) and don’t be afraid to read the more awkwardly spelled parts out-loud. If nothing else, you could distract someone enough that they’ll want to read it too. And if there is anything you learn from this book, it is that the more chances our lovely 26 are able to flourish, the better.
