Ella Minnow Pea

A friend gave me this book by Mark Dunn for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I remember looking at the cover, (which my version has a picture of a minnow-- there are many different versions-- the economics of book publishing) and thinking what a strange name for a child. Then I read it aloud-- L-M-N-O-P-- now it has caught my attention. I sat down and read the book shortly after receiving it. I deemed it a clever little story. There is a town that exists as a tribute to a man who wrote a sentence that uses every letter in the alphabet. (There are several such sentences in the book to prove it is not as daring as a feat as initially assumed.) So, the town builds a statue to the man that has the sentence on it. Well, the statue is getting old, and some of the letters are falling off. So the town council decided that since the letters are falling off, that must be the town founder telling the people that they should no longer use those letters. So, as the town must quit using letters, so must the author, and the letters disappear from the text. Now the book becomes this linguistic challenge.

Upon first reading the book, I thought it was a fun play on words-- it gives a decent challenge. But now, as I revisit it, I can't help but wonder what else it might be saying. I think of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and how it stands against tradition. As educators, I don't think we can just stand against tradition as a means of being innovative. But, we should question edicts to find out why they exist. If I was told I couldn't use the letter q again, it might not be worth the fight (although I think the principle of it would make it so) but if I was told the letter a was off limits-- well, it just wouldn't work.

When we think about standards and expectations, I think it is more important to consider what they are standards off. What is the reason behind their existence? What is their purpose? We shouldn't just eliminate ideas because something symbolic happened. But, we shouldn't just exist based on the symbolic either.

Just some thoughts.