The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip - Hardcover

Saunders, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812989635 ISBN 13: 9780812989632

Publisher: Random House, 2015

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of Tenth of December comes a splendid new edition of his acclaimed collaboration with the illustrator behind The Stinky Cheese Man and James and the Giant Peach! Featuring fifty-two haunting and hilarious images, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a modern fable for people of all ages that touches on the power of kindness, generosity, compassion, and community.

In the seaside village of Frip live three families: the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl named Capable and her father. The economy of Frip is based solely on goat's milk, and this is a problem because the village is plagued by gappers: bright orange, many-eyed creatures the size of softballs that love to attach themselves to goats. When a gapper gets near a goat, it lets out a high-pitched shriek of joy that puts the goats off giving milk, which means that every few hours the children of Frip have to go outside, brush the gappers off their goats, and toss them into the sea. The gappers have always been everyone's problem, until one day they get a little smarter, and instead of spreading out, they gang up: on Capable's goats. Free at last of the tyranny of the gappers, will her neighbors rally to help her? Or will they turn their backs, forcing Capable to bear the misfortune alone?

Featuring fifty-two haunting and hilarious illustrations by Lane Smith and a brilliant story by George Saunders that explores universal themes of community and kindness, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a rich and resonant story for those that have all and those that have not.

Praise for The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

"In a perfect world, every child would own a copy of this profound, funny fable. . . . Every adult would own a copy too, and would marvel at how this smart, subversive little book is even deeper and more hilarious than any child could know."--Entertainment Weekly

"Saunders's idiosyncratic voice makes an almost perfect accompaniment to children's book illustrator Smith's heightened characterizations and slightly surreal backdrops."--Publishers Weekly

"A riveting, funny, and sly new fairy tale."--Miami Herald

About this title

Review:

Young Capable is a very tired little girl from Frip, a tiny village near the sea whose children are constantly exhausted because of the gappers--gappers being bright orange, very stupid animals with a strange weakness for goats.

When a gapper gets near a goat it gives off a continual high-pitched happy shriek of pleasure that makes it impossible for the goat to sleep, and the goats get skinny and stop giving milk. And in towns that survive by selling goat milk, if there's no goat milk, there's no money, and if there's no money, there's no food or housing or clothes, and so, in gapper-infested towns, since nobody likes the idea of starving naked outdoors, it is necessary at all costs to keep the gappers off the goats.

In Frip, it is the responsibility of the children to rid the goats of the gappers who persistently adhere themselves to the goats. Every three hours, day or night, the children must labouriously, brush them off, put them into sacks and dump them into the sea, from where the gappers begin their journey again. This cycle continues until one day, when a gapper with more brains than any of the others realises that they'd save themselves some effort if, instead of dispersing between all the yards, they just made for the yard closest to the sea--Capable's yard. The little girl finds herself overwhelmed and in need of some help from her neighbours.

This is a wonderfully surreal and imaginative tale perfectly complimented by the incredibly quirky illustrations by Lane Smith. This modern morality tale is told with affection, warmth, wit and a large amount of ironic humour which will make the reading of it as pleasurable to adults as it is to children. --Rachel Ediss

Review:

Praise for George Saunders

"No one writes more powerfully than George Saunders."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time."--Khaled Hosseini

"George Saunders is a complete original. . . . There is no one better, no one more essential to our national sense of self and sanity."--Dave Eggers

"Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny."--Zadie Smith

Praise for The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

"In a perfect world, every child would own a copy of this profound, funny fable. . . . Every adult would own a copy too, and would marvel at how this smart, subversive little book is even deeper and more hilarious than any child could know."--Entertainment Weekly

"Saunders's idiosyncratic voice makes an almost perfect accompaniment to children's book illustrator Smith's heightened characterizations and slightly surreal backdrops."--Publishers Weekly

"A riveting, funny, and sly new fairy tale."--Miami Herald

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0812989635
• ISBN 13: 9780812989632
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 96
• Illustrator: Smith Lane