March 4, 2019 CRAZY ABC'S

Alphabetarian. Logophile. Abecedarian. Logomaniac. The English language. What fun. I can reinvent myself EVERY day. On Mondays I'll be an Alphabetarian--ONE WHO STUDIES THE ALPHABET. On Tuesdays a Logophile--A LOVER OF WORDS. On Wednesdays an Abecedarin--WHERE I'LL REFINE MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE ALPHABET. By Thursday I'll be ready to be a LOGOMANIAC. I'm already a maniac so its not TOO big of a stretch to be ONE WHO IS OBSESSED WITH WORDS. Now if I were only able to write a PANGRAM--a sentence or phrase that includes all of the letters of the alphabet--I'd be at the PINNACLE--APEX--ACME--SUMMIT--OKAY-- the top of my game. Why am I wasting my time writing about all these crazy words?? Because they will make reading Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn EVEN MORE FUN. Please--STOP-- RIGHT--NOW.  READ  the title of the book OUT LOUD. Love it. So clever and quirky.

Here's the premise. Ella Minnow Pea lives in on a fictional Island off the coast of South Carolina named Nollop. The island is named after Nevin Nollop, the first author to write a pangram. In addition to naming the Island Nollop, there is a statue of him and his pangram in the town center. The island is also run by a council who border on Totalitarianism. One day, a letter falls from the pangram and the council believes that this is a sign from Nollop that this letter must be banned from the alphabet. It's not too hard at first because it's the letter Z, but when other letters start to fall communication becomes almost impossible. Ella, the heroine, fights against the council to free the letters to restore language. This hilarious novel is also a satire. It's an example of how crazy our world can become when idiotic people are in power (HHHHMMMM). Find out what happens to Ella, the island of  Nollop and the English language when you read this 200 page--2.5 mile run-- for yourself.  I loved every minute of this book AND although it was written in 2001, it is perhaps  more relevant today than in 2001. ENJOY!