Ella Minnow Pea

In this literary fantasy, the island of Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, is a tiny independent nation dedicated to the memory of Nevin Nollop, who invented the sentence, The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, famous for using all the letters of the alphabet. Gradually, the letters on Nollop's monument begin disappearing, one at a time--first Z, then Q, etc. The rulers of Nollop decree that, on pain of exile, local citizens must stop using words containing each letter as it disappears. The difficulties arising from this nuttiness are manifold, and culminate in the person of the eponymous Ella, who must come up with a way out of the problem.