I'm usually not someone who likes books that have been forced on me by a class, but I actually really liked this book. The premise of the book seems light enough - people who revere the English language live on the island of Nollop, named after the man who wrote the sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This sentence, which uses all 26 letters of the English language, is put up in the town square with individual tiles for each letters. As time passes, however, the tiles begin to fall off their plaque and the town decided to take this as a sign that Nollop wants them to stop using these letters. Ella Minnow Pea, written in letters, documents this change as the townspeople writing to each other are unable to use these letters in their writing. This book was a satirical and whimsical look at how totalitarianism slowly creeps upon a nation. More than that, it was an entertaining look at the importance of language to communicate with people. Through Ella Minnow Pea, we learn that every letter, even Z, X, and Q, is invaluable - we use them far more often than we think we do. It's a slightly challenging read for two reasons: 1) The language-lovers of Nollop sometime use obscure SAT-like vocabulary (while they are still able to) and 2) Letters just keep on falling off the plaque and, consequently, out of the book. However, it's not too difficult and worth the trouble.