To see excerpts from the Missing Letters book itself, visit the Excerpts and Info page, with beautiful illustrations by Leon Thomas. Lesson materials to help students engage in word play and build their phonemic awareness and spelling skills are on the lessons page.
What’s below are draft sketches by Leon that didn’t make it into the book as well as some drawings by Samuel Otten (admittedly a writer, not an artist) and submissions by fans of the book. If you think of a missing letter word pair, you’re welcome to put it in the Replies/Comments at the bottom of this page or submit to the Missing Letters Contest.
Missing Letter Word Pairs (not in the book)
Withouth n, MOON becomes MOO. –sketch by Leon Thomas from a request by Mindy, forming an animal sound partner to the banana/baaa word pair in the book
Without p, CLAMP becomes CLAM. –sketch by Leon Thomas in an early draft of the book
Without u, UNDERGROUND becomes NDERGROND. –sketch by Leon Thomas in an early draft of the book. We wanted a word that became gibberish with a missing letter and the gibberish example had to be late in the alphabet. This was our first attempt but we went a different direction in the book.
Without s, SNAIL becomes NAIL. –by Samuel Otten
Without n, VIOLENT becomes VIOLET. –by Chelsea Otten
Without a, CHAIN becomes CHIN. –by Samuel Otten on Twitter
Without b, BRAIN becomes RAIN and BEARS becomes EARS. –by Leslie Dietiker on Twitter
Without s, FAST becomes FAT. –by Harvey Otten (age 7)
Without o, ORANGE becomes RANGE. -by Samuel Otten with his kids
Missing Letters MOVIE Game
Name a movie title that is based on a real movie but has a letter missing. Examples are below and you can share yours in the comments below.
Forrest Gum, The Font Page, and TNT (by Samuel Otten)The Word in the Tone and T. (by Samuel Otten)Blazing Sales and Hostbusters (by Chelsea Otten)
Chia tow (requested by William Tyson)
Tar War, Rock, and The Bride on the River Kwai (by Ricky Rhodes)Ma of Steel and Birds of Pry (by JLU Podcast)The Silence of the Labs and Pup Fiction (by Chelsea Otten)Roof (by Mizzou Math Ed) and Angled (by Two-Minute Teacher’s Guide)Seen and Dadpool (by Chris Austin)When Hay Met Sally, The Breakfast Cub, and The Fellowship of the Rig (by Samuel Otten)
Missing Letters 
For the Movie Game, I’d love to see Chinatown turned into Chia Tow.
LikeLike
One might think “Chia Tow” is too absurd to work, but ask and ye shall receive!
LikeLike
Granite
LikeLike
tan
LikeLike