I rescued this book ages ago from a library book sale and have never met another person who’s read it. Which is a shame, because it’s such a fun and interesting novel. Ella Minnow Pea is set the town of Nollop, which bears a monument to the sentence “The quick brown foxy jumps over the lazy dog,” which of course contains all the letters of the English alphabet. Trouble arises when letters start to fall off that monument, leading to their being banned in the writing and correspondence of the townspeople…and to their exclusion of the actual text of the novel.

Ella Minnow Pea is creative, lighthearted, and fun. It’s a novel that feels “worth reading” without being heavy and dark. Your brain gets a bit of exercise trying to decipher some of the latter chapters, too. For that reason, this may not be the best book to read at the beach or right before bed—the last third especially requires some focus and interpretation. But anyone who loves words and word games will have a great time.