Ella Minnow Pea – A Word Lover’s Delight!

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn

Fiction/Epistolary Novel, Published 2001

Challenges: N/A

Received from paperbackswap.com

Read March 2010

4/5

From the Cover:

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina.  Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop.  As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.  The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression and a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.

Review:

The Nollopians are proud people.  They are especially proud of their most noted citizen, Nevin Nollop.  They even have a statue of him in the town square with a sign of his notable sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”  When letters start falling from the old dilapidated sign, the local government decides it is a sign from the grave, from Nollop himself, telling his fellow Nollopians that the said letter can no longer be used.  While this first appears to only be an annoying inconvenience with the letters Z and Q, it quickly becomes outrageously amusing for the reader to see how our favorite cousins Ella and Tassie will continue to communicate without the unlawful letters.  It truly is a mastery of wordmanship!

But Ella and Tassie do not find their dire situation amusing, not one bit! They are simply outraged that their once trusted and beloved home of proud word lovers has become quite empty with more and more fellow Nollopians excommunicated back to the States and their letters becoming shorter and shorter, fearing they may slip up and they will find themselves leaving Nollop for good.  Soon even the governing body finds it hard work around such few letters and commands that if someone comes up with a better, shorter pangram than Mr. Nollop, all the letters will be allowed back on the island.  As Miss Ella Minnow Pea becomes one of the last remaining Nollopians left, the pressure is on for her to work out such a sentence.  Can she do it?  The last few letters are continually falling off and all that are left are L-M-N-O-P…

I loved Tassie and Ella from the start.  They explain that they must write letters across their little Nollopian island, simply because for some reason, even they do not understand, the phone lines cannot be connected and until they can find a string long enough to tie two cans together, they will continue to write to each other daily.  I absolutely love epistolary novels and this one is sure to hit the spot with all the true bibliophiles who love each and every one of the 26 letters.

Quotes:

See my Teaser Tuesday post.

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I Want to Join the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Historical Fiction, Published 2008

5/5

From the Cover:

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject.  Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’d never met, a native of Guernsey, the British island once occupied by the Nazis.  He’d come across her name on the flyleaf of a secondhand volume by Charles Lamb.  Perhaps she could tell him where me might find more books by this author.

 

Review:

Every book lover will love this book.  This beautiful novel is written through a series of letters during the late 1940s from London to Guernsey Island.  It begins as Dawsey Adams who has lived on Guernsey his entire life finds Juliet Ashton’s name on the inside cover of a Charles Lamb book and wants to know if there’s more out there just like it.  Juliet herself has been effected by the bombings in London and all her precious books have been destroyed, but she and her friends and family are for the most part unharmed.  She quickly becomes enamored by the lives of those living on Guernsey Island and how they were so deeply effected by the war.  The Nazis had invaded the island and forever changed the lives of the Guernsey people.

The letters are written from the members of the Guernsey Literary Society to Juliet telling her all about their adventures and hardships during the war and how reading and the literary society has changed their lives.  You will not be able to put this one down as you read the letters along with Juliet and yearn with her as she awaits to receive the next letter from Guernsey.  Letter after letter, Juliet quickly falls in love with all the Guernsey people and longs to be a part of their lives and she just has to attend one of their literary society meetings!

Quotes:

I wonder how the book got to Guernsey?  Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person’s name suddenly pops up everywhere you go?  My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace.  He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and “fruitfulness” is drawn in.     -From Juliet to Dawsey (p. 116)

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These is my Words

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 – Arizona Territories by Nancy E. Turner

Historical Fiction, Published 1998

Read June-July 2008

Arizona Author Award, Willa Cather Literary Award Finalist

5/5

From the Cover:

A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author’s own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon – from child to determined young adult to loving mother – she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.

Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again.

Review:

Although loosely based on the life of the author’s great-grandmother, These Is My Words is a fictional piece written completely from the diaries and letters of Sarah Agnes Prine, a young woman living in the frontiers of Arizona during the late 1800s.

Sarah is just 17 at the beginning of the novel in July of 1881 and has very poor writing skills. She is determined to chronicle her family’s trip across the southwest from Cottonwood Springs in New Mexico Territory to San Angelo, Texas through hostile Indian territory. As Sarah’s journey changes, her diary and writing style changes as well. She very quickly grows up during her travels across the American Southwest and her writing beautifully reflects this shift.

Over twenty years are chronicled by Sarah in this novel. Sarah experiences many ups and downs out on the Territory. She marries a man that does not love her, has a daughter, loses her husband, finally finds true love with a man she met at 17 along the trail, starts a new family and creates a prosperous life that she helped build. Sarah is a strong female living out in the wild west and she not only writes about her daily chores but also about the people living around her, people that both change and shape her life’s journey.

Recommended to anyone interested in reading about American pioneer life, traveling across America in a covered wagon, and settling down in an unknown frontier. I love epistolary novels and Sarah’s detailed journal entries are so fantastic that she and her entire family just jump off the page. I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next in this series, Sarah’s Quilt. Also recommended is One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus.

My biggest Buff Orpington rooster is on the small corral fence letting me know he is in charge, all puffed up and sassy. There is nothing more silly than a rooster taking over the world, but every day he thinks he can. I wonder if we are just a little part of the world, like that rooster, and that the real things go on around us while we strut in our own yards trying to take charge of things. -September 1886 (p. 279)

Check out my review at the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge Blog

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Weekly Letters

 

 

The Wednesday Letters

Jason F. Wright

Fiction, Published 2007

www.thewednesdayletters.com

Read Oct. 2007

4.5/5.0

 

Book Quotes…

In meeting “The King” and his ‘exquisite bride’

April 22, 1970

To my “exquisite bride,”

…I can count on one hand the number of experiences I ‘ve ever had that will live in my mind until they drag me from this earth. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to take this one with me.

Last night, against all odds, we visited Graceland! No, we didn’t jut ‘visit’ Graceland, did we, dear? …

How did you keep a straight face when you told him you suffered from Asian Stone Lung Disorder? And your cough-your cough was brilliant! It sounded like you had marbles in your chest. I don’t want to know when you found time to perfect that…

I love you,

Jack Cooper
Husband of the only known survivor of the Asian Stone Lung Disorder

February 22, 1961

Dearest Laurel,

…Speaking of “Natural” Bridge -and I’m writing with this complete knowledge it may someday be read by our children- taking my swimsuit at the hot springs and locking yourself in the car up the hill was an act of war. Did you see the look on that ranger’s face? I could have been ticketed! Take note. This is a battle I shall not lose. I will be waiting. You will not know the time or place, but rest assured, Laurel Cooper, before we leave this earth, you too will find yourself mooning the wildlife.

Jack the stRipper

Why did you choose this book?

I love the idea of letters. I’ve tried to save every letter or card that someone has sent me…yes, I’m a bit of a pack rat…but I think it’s nice to go back through the box and read things people wrote from years ago and I think it will be even more nice when I’m old and want to remember them. So the idea of a book about a man who wrote his wife a letter on every Wednesday seemed romantic. Plus, every reviewer on amazon gave it 5 stars…you can’t go wrong with that! The epilogue is cool too!

Briefly summarize the book without giving away the ending…

Suffering from a massive brain tumor, Jack has already outlived the time the doctor has told him he will live. So it takes him by surprise when his wife, Laurel, suddenly dies of a heart attack in bed one night. They are an older couple who have spent the latter 20 or so years establishing their B&B in Woodstock, Virginia. After Laurel has passed, Jack tries to get help but there is no one there. He quickly writes his last letter to his wife and suddenly fades away next to her in bed. They are found the next morning lying together in bed peacefully sleeping forever. Their three children come for the funeral, each in a different place in their lives, but they soon come together as they find their father’s letters and try to piece together the beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking lives of their parents.

What did you like most about the book?

I liked that this book was easy to read, I read it in less than 10 hours on and off. That’s pretty good for me since I will usually read for a few hours and not get back to the book for a few days. I liked how the letters became a puzzle for the family to put together, keeping them occupied during the sad days after both their parents pass away. Plus they learn that there was a lot more to the lives of their parents that they didn’t know about. Jack and Laurel were not perfect and they knew that, they let God help them through the hard times and learned to forgive one another.

What did you think of the characters?

I loved the characters in this book, especially Malcolm and Samantha. The funeral brings the three siblings back together when life had taken them in different directions. The letters solidify their sense of family and the gift of forgiveness.

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