Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (2001)

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters (2001) by Mark Dunn is a quick, deceptively cute tale told in a series of letters by different characters of Nollop, a small country devoted to the sentence "A quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (which includes all of the letters in the alphabet).  The sentence is immortalized in tile work, but as the letters begin falling off, the leaders of Nollop begin banning their use.  As you can imagine, the loss of letters causes many problems, clearly seen in the letters of the novel as they become more and more difficult to read.  The only solution is to come up with a new sentence containing all of the letters, but one that is shorter than the original.

Cover image: BetterWorldBooks.com

I say the book is deceptively cute, though, because the premise seems like an idea from a grade school student, but Dunn is able to weave in heavier themes.  The novel is a denunciation of governments that seek to control every aspect of their population, it is a rebuke of blind belief or faith, and it is a rumination on the way words and language and communication bind our society together.  Ella Minnow Pea remains cute, though, and very readable.