Ella Minnow Pea -- Take 2

I finished up Ella Minnow Pea a couple of weeks ago, and I have nothing but good things to say about it!

I love epistolary novels.  Check.
I love clever use of language.  Check.
I love short novels (on account of my total lack of free time at present).  Check.

This is the tale of a fictional island nation off the coast of the U.S. named Nollopton, after the man who crafted the uses-all-26-letters sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  When tiles containing the letters in that famous sentence start to drop from Nollop's statue in the town square, the Nollopton residents are forbidden from using said letter any more.

The story is told in the form of correspondence mainly between two cousins, but with assorted others added in as the story goes along.

I was a bit concerned as I got 2/3 of the way into the book and the correspondence was a bit roundabout, but not too extreme in terms of working around the missing letters.  Then the vital letters started to fall, and the correspondence got extremely clever - and also somewhat difficult to read!  Now I see why the author didn't take us there earlier in the book.  Tip: it helps to pretend to read it out loud - it's a bit like poetry that way.

All in all, an enjoyable read.