Read to Lead

This past week our “Read to Lead” leadership book club finished its second book. The book chosen for this month was Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. The book follows the story of a fictional island of Nollop. The island of Nollop, located off the Southeastern coast of the United States, is named after Joseph Nollop, the creator of a sentence which contains all the letters of the alphabet: “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” The island commemorated Joseph Nollop with a statue of himself with his name and sentence in letters underneath. The problems arise when the letters begin to fall off the monument. The incident was proclaimed, by the islands council, to be the divine intervention of Joseph Nollop who is conveying that the island should no longer use the letters in their language. As more and more letters begin to fall people on the island become more enraged by the council’s action to remove the letters from the alphabet. The council however takes stricter regulations to any people who use the letters. The island residents must band together to try and change their course and get the island council to stop their current path and reinstate the letters to the alphabet.

Throughout the book the residents are faced with the dilemma of how to address their elected officials. As letters began to fall off the monument, the elected officials refused to take responsibility and replace the letters by declaring it to be divine intervention. At first the island residents do not really question the response of the island council. The first letter that fell was the letter Z and Ella is quoted by saying, “Who really uses the letter Z anyways?” She even goes as far as throwing it a going away party. Her cousin Tassie however sees that the island council could be set on a slippery slope that would be devastating to the island residents. The dilemma is often faced in real life when citizens do not know how to properly engage with their elected officials. While reading this book a phrase from the movie, “V for Vendetta,” kept popping into my head: “People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.” This book highlighted the fact that while elected officials to government ultimately have the power to create law, the people are the ones who should inspire legislation that can be supported by fact and certainties. This is why deliberative dialog is always an important aspect within any community.