LMNOP

Well, I felt like posting today partly because of a couple of fun books I found, and partly because it's the 29th of February, and how do you not blog on a day that exists once every four years? It sounds like something out of a fairy tale, or a sci-fi thriller, or maybe a mixture of both...

Anyway, at the library last week we (the kidlets and I) stumbled upon a book by an author I mentioned previously named Tom Lichtenheld. The book was called E-mergency!, and since I love everything else he writes, I picked it up and added it to my bag. And I wasn't disappointed. the gist of the story is that all the letters live together in a house, but one day E gets hurt, and by the doctors orders, nobody is allowed to use the letter E until she has a chance to recover, and O has to step in to pick up the slack. Makes for some pretty funny spelling. My kids can't get enough of it, and the illustrations add a whole new dimension to the story. I laughed out loud when I closed the book the first time, and saw the caption, "Look, it's and E-book!".

This book got me thinking to a novel a read a few years ago. One I picked up on a whim and absolutely fell for. It's a novel in letters, and it basically follows the same type of concept. Ella Minnow Pea is a young lady living on the island of Nollop in the Atlantic ocean, named after the man who 'supposedly' penned the famous pangram:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Hint: all the letters of the alphabet are used at least once. Anyway, the book is essentially a series of letters written between Ella and her friends and family discussing the political and social issues that arise when letters start falling off the monument established for Nollop, causing the island's high council, by divine will, to banish them from the alphabet.

At first, Ella and friends, find other ways of saying words with banned letters (my favorite is when the council 'renames' the days of the week. But as the alphabet continues to diminish, the text, and the task, become harder, and funnier.

This book is definitely not within my genre, but I considered it so clever and unique, it's moved up the list to one of my all time faves. Check it out, if you need a good read!

And Happy Leap Day!